A Space to Live

This morning, I began a series of sermons based on the first three chapters of the book of Genesis. Today's sermon focused on Genesis 1:1-13, the first three days of creation. It was also communion Sunday; so I considered God's first creative actions as preparing a place for us to live in peace amidst the chaos of the primeval universe. When we come to the table, we come to the peace that God intended for the entire world. What do you think?

I am convinced that we don’t know who we are if we don’t know where we came from.

Did you get that? Let me say it again. We don’t know who we are if we don’t know where we came from.

Human beings need a context, a bigger picture that can help us to understand how we got to where we are right now. Why else would people spend countless hours (and countless dollars) researching their family history? Finding out where we came from is a search that is crucial to establishing our identity! Were our ancestors immigrants? If they were, what country did they come from? Why did they leave? Were they persecuted? Did they seek religious freedom; or was some long-ago ancestor escaping the long arms of the law? It’s human nature, after all, to want to place ourselves somewhere; and questions like these are basic if we want to understand who we are and where we belong in the world.

We can say the same thing about ourselves as Christians. We don’t know who we are as Christians if we don’t know where we came from. That’s why, during the months of July and August, I’ll be going all the way back to the very beginning – to the first 3 chapters of the book of Genesis – and exploring where we came from with respect to our faith. We’ll be thinking about questions like, “Why are we here?” “Who does God intend for us to be?” “Are we the people that God intended?” If that answer is ‘No,’ then, “What went wrong?” And as we look at where we came from, the past will shed some light on our identity as people of God right now.

So let’s go all the way back to the beginning – the VERY beginning – before there was even a universe. Genesis tells us that in the beginning there were two things: God, and something else. That “something else” is usually translated as a “formless void,” a “watery abyss.” Maybe the closest that we can come to describing it is to say that it was chaos. It wasn’t exactly nothing, but it wasn’t really something either. In it there was no up nor down, no here nor there, no present nor future. It was and it wasn’t, all at the same time. Only God could comprehend it; and God decided that it something needed to change.

And so, as the first act of creation, God created light. Light is a profound symbol in the biblical text. Light isn’t just the ability to see with our eyes; it stands for all kinds of things – knowledge, wisdom, and relationship. With light comes the potential to discern good and bad, right and wrong, truth and falsehood. That kind of light was the very first thing that God created. And then, God separated this light of discernment from the darkness of chaos, and created time. Now creation had the beginnings of a structure – past, present, and future – and the first day occurred.

But the watery chaos still surrounded everything; and so, God created a space in middle of that chaos. Genesis tells us that God created a raquia – a firmament – a dome – a ceiling – and pushed back the waters of chaos to make a quiet space in between. Oh, the chaotic waters are still up there. (After all, said the ancient writers, the sky is blue; so there must be water up there behind that ceiling.) Some of the chaotic waters are still down here, too. But in the middle, where we live, things are peaceful, and time is going quietly by.

That was a good start, but it still wasn’t enough for God. The chaotic waters down here were still causing a ruckus. So God gathered those waters together and said to them, “Now, you stay here in the oceans. This is your place. The dry land will be a peaceful place. None of your chaos is allowed there!” The book of Job (38:8-11) describes the event like a mother taking charge of a rebellious toddler:

"God shut up the sea behind doors,
diapered it in clouds and dressed it in darkness.
Then he fixed limits for it, and set a gate in place.
He said, ‘You may come this far, but no farther.
You have to stop here.’"

God did all of that so that living things would have a space to be. Life, after all, can’t exist in the middle of chaos. Life needs structure: up and down, here and there, present and future, good and bad, right and wrong. And so, God’s first acts of creation carved out that space for the good of all life – oak trees and daffodils, pelicans and bluebirds, giraffes and hedgehogs – and, eventually, you and me. God made a place where all of us could live in peace.

Now, today we know a lot more about the universe than the authors of the book of Genesis did. Telescopes and spacecraft have shown us that there isn’t any ceiling above the sky that is holding the waters of chaos back. But don’t think that chaos is gone. Oh, my, no – chaos is still all around us. When a spot shows up on an X-ray and our doctor orders more testing, we see the shadow of chaos. When our checking account is empty and a collection agency phones, we can hear the whisper of chaos. When we hear reports of riots in Syria and roadside bombs in Afghanistan and suicide bombers in Israel, we can feel chaos breathing down our neck.

But chaos is not in charge! That’s the message of the authors of Genesis in their account of the very first days of creation. Chaos is not in charge. God is in charge; and God has gifted us with a space to live that is intended to be a place of peace and plenty. God carved out a place in the middle of chaos so that we would have a space to live.

Now, that space doesn’t feel very peaceful sometimes; and God’s plenty frequently seems far away. When we feel like that, God invites us here – to the table, where Jesus Christ waits for us. Here at the table is the space where we live as Christians.

The night that we remember at this table was the scene of a battle with the powers of chaos. Oh, we can call it Satan or the devil or Evil if we like – but it was chaos that put Jesus on a cross and snuffed out his life. Jesus embraced that chaos, went right through it, and came out the other side triumphant on Easter morning. And when he did, he gave us a space to live that not only offers us peace that passes all understanding in this life, but also eternal life in the kingdom of God.

So, this morning, come – come to the table. Come to the table where we live together in peace, and where even the chaos of death has been overcome. Come to the table where we are nurtured and valued and loved. Come to the table that Christ has set – his space, where we are invited to live with him forever.

Don't Throw That Away!

In this sermon, I consider the question of what is useful for contemporary churches to keep in their search to remain relevant in today's world. To analyze today, I look at Christian history as summarized by Phyllis Tickle in her recent (2008) book The Great Emergence. Many ideas of the past have been thrown away as the Christian church has moved through history. If you choose to read this sermon, think about what the church of today should choose to keep -- and what it might choose to throw away!



Well, we made it through the garage sale, didn’t we? It’s been nearly a month now since our church garage sale took place, and I hope that we’re still rejoicing about the $1500 that we made for our new playground equipment. Some of us are also rejoicing about the newly de-cluttered rooms in our homes!

That garage sale wasn’t easy! Garage sales never are. They involve lots of all kinds of work: sorting, organizing, displaying, and cleaning up afterwards. And, of course, there are always disagreements – disagreements that seem to center around the question of what should be donated and what should be kept. A box might be filled with items that, in one person’s opinion, are great things to donate to the sale! But before that box can be hauled away, someone else appears out of nowhere. “What’s in the box?” he asks. “Can I have a look?” And waaaay down in the bottom, there is always sure to be something that person thinks should be kept. “Oh, don’t throw that away!” he says. Hmmmm….

What should be kept… and what should be thrown away? It’s not just a question that churches ask when they sponsor a community garage sale! In fact, Phyllis Tickle, a specialist of religion and society, claims that Christianity as a whole asks that question every 500 years. In her recent book The Great Emergence (Baker Books, 2008), Tickle has observed that “about every five hundred years, the Church feels compelled to hold a giant [garage] sale.” She claims that it takes that long for the faith to get cluttered up with all kinds of activities and traditions and doctrines that actually keep more people away from the faith than they do to welcome them in. And so, every 500 years, the Church gets rid of some of the clutter. Let’s take a quick tour through the past 2,000 years of Christian history, and see what our garage sales of the past have looked like. All you have to do is to step into my WayBack machine and fasten your seat belt. Here we go!

Our first stop is in the city of Ephesus (in what is now the country of Turkey) in about the year 55. Paul of Tarsus is preaching to a crowd of Jews and gentiles that Jesus of Nazareth is God’s Messiah, and that what God really wants of us is to follow Jesus and to model our lives after him. According to Paul, we can throw away all the Jewish ritual laws – temple sacrifice, keeping kosher, and circumcision. The Jews in the audience are objecting, “Don’t throw that away!” but Paul insists. The gentiles, on the other hand, are delighted to hear that Paul says they don’t have to keep all the Jewish laws! It’s ironic that Christianity itself was born in the midst of a garage sale of epic proportions.

Now let’s fast-forward the WayBack machine 550 years, to the year 600. The Roman Empire is dead; and the barbarian hordes that have overrun the city of Rome have decided to stay there. Quite a few have become Christian themselves; but most of them are illiterate. Their form of Christianity is as much magic and superstition as it is living in and through Jesus Christ. We are standing in the entrance to the cloister where a small group of monks live together. It’s dark and quiet here in the cloister; and we can hear the monks chanting as they join in worship. Unlike most Christians, these monks can read and write. (Their scriptorium is right over there, in fact, where they meticulously copy Bibles and other books by hand.) They have been organized by Pope Gregory I, who is now called Gregory the Great. Gregory understood that if Christianity was to survive, the treasures of its past must not be thrown out. Manuscripts, books, and church tradition must be preserved for the education of future generations. So, he organized groups of monks and nuns to do just that. Fortunately, in the garage sale of the 5^th century, Gregory the Great kept some real treasures from being thrown out in the dumpster!

Here we go again. We’re off to the year 1054. This time, we’re in the sanctuary of the Hagia Sophia, the Church of the Holy Wisdom, in the city of Constantinople (now called Istanbul). The bishop is announcing to his parishioners that their whole church has been excommunicated by the Bishop of Rome because of a theological disagreement. Today, we call this the “Great Schism”; and these two major sections of Christianity – Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox – have not yet been reconciled. In the garage sale of 1054, for better or for worse, Christian unity was the victim of the decluttering efforts.

OK, one last stop. The year is 1517; and we’re standing in front of the door of the church in Wittenburg, Germany. There’s a long piece of paper tacked on the door – a list of 95 theological points. A monk named Martin Luther wants to debate them with authorities in the Roman Catholic church. If this last stop is more familiar to you, I’m not surprised. Luther’s 95 Theses were the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Lots of old ways were thrown out in this garage sale! Traditional practices were reexamined in light of the corruption that had infiltrated the Roman Catholic church; and a new emphasis on opening the Bible to non-clergy sprang up.

And that brings us to today. It’s not quite 500 years past Luther’s time; so we’re about due for another Christian church garage sale. In fact, Phyllis Tickle argues that we’re in the middle of one right now! Churches are reevaluating all kinds of things that have been taken for granted until fairly recently. If we look at Christian churches around the country (and even around the world), we will find that there is no one way of “being church” any more. Congregations have thrown out all kinds of things as they move into the future!

·         Some churches have reinvented their worship practices. Many worship on days other than Sunday. Worship spaces have been redesigned so that the seating can fit the needs of any particular day’s worship experience. Ancient worship practices like Taizé worship (an experience of scripture, music, and meditation) have been rediscovered. Worship is no longer simply a keynote address with a few prayers.

·         Others have discarded “programming” in favor of “service opportunities.” These churches are organizing to work on Habitat homes, serve in soup kitchens, and help out in disaster-stricken areas. They are hear Jesus’ call as not to be “organized religion,” but to be “religion organized” in the service of others.

·         And Christian education is undergoing a huge change. The morning Sunday school model fits so few churches these days that many congregations have even donated it to the garage sale! These churches are integrating their Christian education into all aspects of their church life. All ages work, worship, and fellowship together; and in the process, they learn about Jesus and his call to love God and one another.

Yes, it’s all up for discussion these days. What shall we keep, and what shall we throw away?

Unfortunately, my WayBack machine can only travel to the past, so I can’t show you what Christianity will look like 500 years in the future. Who knows what things will look like then? But I do know that in the midst of our decluttering the church from everything that is holding us back, there is only one thing that we really need to hang on to. We can find it by getting in the WayBack machine one more time and going way back – all the way back to 15 years before the time of St. Paul, about the year 35. As we step out of the WayBack machine, we’re in a small upper room in the Middle East in the middle of a celebration. Men and women are shouting with joy, crowding around a young man who is standing in their midst. Just a few days ago, on Friday, they were frightened and grief-stricken – but today, on Sunday, their joy knows no bounds. Jesus, the one they thought was gone forever, has returned to them with his message of love and salvation. They are ready to do anything in his service, because Jesus is risen!

In this morning’s scripture reading (Revelation 2:1-5, 7), we heard a message to the church in Ephesus. In part, it warned, “Don’t lose the love that you had at first.” That love is the love that Jesus’ disciples felt on that first Easter Day when they realized that Jesus would be with them forever. It was the love that sent them to all corners of the known world, to preach the gospel to Jews and to gentiles, and even to go into the arena as martyrs! We dare not lose that love as we respond to today’s realities and to tomorrow’s challenges. Our identity as people of Jesus Christ must continue to be our foundation as we reevaluate what we do in our churches and how we go about doing it. Otherwise, we will have discarded our love for Jesus Christ – and that’s the one thing that we must never throw away!

Ebeneezers

This is a sermon for the Sunday when our congregation honors our high school and college graduates. As they look forward to a new time in their lives, I suspect that they have mixed feelings. (I know I did!) They're ready to leave the past behind, but... what does the future hold? "Ebeneezers" looks at the story of Jacob's dream as a model for recognizing the presence of God in our own lives, even when we don't expect to find it.

I don’t very often build a sermon from a word in a hymn. But this morning, that’s exactly what I’m doing. Some of you may have noticed that my sermon title today – “ebeneezer” – appears in the second verse of today’s opening hymn. (The hymn is “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” and the verse begins “Here I raise my ebeneezer; hither by thy help I’m come.”) You might be wondering just what an ebeneezer is, anyway! An ebeneezer is another word for a stone monument – a pillar that someone sets up so that everyone who goes by can see it. But an ebeneezer isn’t just any stone monument. An ebeneezer is a monument that recalls God’s help in a time of need.

The word “ebeneezer” actually comes from two Hebrew words that mean “stone of help.” “Eben (stone) ezer (help)” – “ebeneezer” – “stone of help.” Jacob set up an ebeneezer like that in this morning’s story from Genesis (28:10-19). But… I’m getting ahead of myself. To fully appreciate that ebeneezer, you need a little bit of background first. It starts with Jacob and his brother Esau.

To say that Jacob and Esau didn’t get along is a major understatement. It would be like saying that the Hatfields and the McCoys weren’t the best of friends. Jacob and Esau took sibling rivalry to a whole new level! As today’s story opens, Jacob is running away from Esau to save his own skin. Esau has threatened to kill him because Jacob stole a blessing from their father Isaac that should have gone to Esau. So Jacob is heading for his uncle Laban’s place at Haran, nearly 500 miles to the north, on what is now the border between Syria and Turkey. It was far enough away that Esau couldn’t get to him; but it was also far enough away that Jacob was leaving his home far behind. Jacob – the son who didn’t like to hunt or herd – the boy who liked to help his mother in the tent – was leaving the only home that he had ever known, heading towards an unknown future.

I wonder how Jacob felt as he stopped to rest on that first night. I imagine that he was frightened and lonely. He certainly didn’t know what to expect on his journey. What kind of dangers would he run into? Would he have to fight wild animals or bandits? When his food and water ran out, would he be able to find more? And, if he arrived at Haran safely, would his uncle accept him; or would Laban send him packing right back where he came from?

If you remember a time when you started a new chapter in your life, I’ll bet that you felt a little bit like Jacob. Maybe you started a new job, or moved to a new city. Or maybe you were a brand new graduate! It’s exciting to be a new graduate… but it can also be scary. Like Jacob, you know what the past was like; but you don’t know anything about what lies ahead. You ask yourself all kinds of questions. Will you be up to the challenges that you meet along the way? Will you meet folks who are friendly and helpful; or will you long for the days of old familiar faces? Will you be a success… or a miserable failure? Oh, yes – leaving the past behind and starting on a journey into the future brings a whole new set of questions!

And Jacob was leaving more than just his home and his family. As far as Jacob knew, he was leaving his God behind, too! In Jacob’s day, everyone believed that gods were territorial. You worshipped the god where you lived! If you lived in southern Canaan, you might worship Baal; but if you lived in Tyre or Sidon or Ur or Haran, you worshipped a different god. Each area had its own god. I’m very sure that Jacob believed that God – his god – had stayed in the home that he left behind. We do that ourselves sometimes. Oh, we know in our heads that God is everywhere and that God goes with us wherever we go. But are our hearts convinced of that? When we move on to a new school, a new place, or a new job, do we expect God to be there with us, too?

I’m not sure that Helen expected God to go with her after her marriage broke up. (Helen isn’t her real name; but her story is true.) When the dust settled after her divorce, Helen moved to another state, and began attending a tiny church near her new home. The church was nothing like the one in which she had grown up. There was hardly anyone her age; the music was pathetic; the preaching had no point that she could find; and they offered no programs to speak of. On the first Sunday that she visited there, she wondered why she had bothered coming. If God was there, he was very well hidden! But something told her to keep coming back. I’ll bet that you’ve already guessed the end of the story. That little church offered Helen a non-judgmental love that literally gave her food when she had none, friends when she needed them, and refuge when she had nowhere else to turn. Every day God helped Helen through the loving church folks who offered what she needed.

On our journeys into the future, we find God in places that we never expect. Jacob had that experience, too. On the very first night of his travels, Jacob had a dream. In that dream, he saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, with angels going up and down on it. At the very top of the ladder sat God – the God that Jacob thought he had left behind. And then he heard God’s reassuring words: “I am with you, and will watch over you wherever you go; and I will bring you back to this land.” When Jacob woke up, he set up the ebeneezer that began my sermon – Jacob’s stone of help. He set it up to commemorate God’s presence with him when he least expected it. He had felt lonely and frightened and uncertain… and now, with God’s help, he was reassured, secure, and confident. “Surely,” he said, “surely the Lord is in this place, and I never even knew it.”

I don’t know if Jacob’s ebeneezer is still standing in Israel. But do I know that there are plenty of other monuments that witness to the God who appears to offer help when we least expect it. One example is the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, what we now call the Dome of the Rock. According to Jewish tradition, it marks the site where Abraham attempted to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, but was stopped by God himself who substituted a ram for the sacrifice. A second example is the church in Lourdes, France. Just over 150 years ago, a young girl in Lourdes saw a vision of the Virgin Mary there. From that time to this, the water in its grotto has been associated with miraculous healings. Much closer to home is St. Paul’s Episcopal Chapel in New York City. St. Paul’s stands directly across the street from the former location of the Twin Towers. On 9/11, it miraculously escaped destruction when the towers collapsed. It became a place of refuge for firefighters and police officers who were offered hot food, warm beds, and trauma counseling, in addition to as many prayers as they needed. It remains a place of witness to God’s presence with us, even in disaster.

Jacob’s story is actually our story, too. It happens over, and over, and over again: we turn our faces to the future; we leave our past behind; and we step out, not knowing what we will find. When we travel through unfamiliar places, it’s hard to sense God’s presence with us. But then, something happens – and we realize that, even when we didn’t feel it, God has been there with us all along.

And so, I have some advice for all you graduates this morning. You may be graduating from college, from high school, from junior high school, from kindergarten, or just from another year of life – my advice is the same for all of you. Don’t worry about the future! Step out with courage! Don’t be afraid of the tough times – and there will be some. During those times, it might feel like God is a million miles away! But he won’t be. One day, like Jacob, you’ll look back at those times, and you’ll be amazed! You might even put up an ebeneezer. Because on that day, you’ll say, “Oh, my gosh! God was right there with me all the time!”

The Spirit of Courage

I preached this Sunday on May 27, 2012, a Sunday that was both Pentecost and Memorial Day Sunday. One goal of this sermon was to find common ground between these two holidays that are so very dissimilar. I chose to focus on the virtue of "courage." The book of Acts implies that courage was a gift of the Holy Spirit to Jesus' followers. It seems to me that the courage shown by many of our military men and women is that same kind of gift. If you choose to read the sermon, see if you agree with me.

This morning is a two-for-one Sunday: it’s both Pentecost and Memorial Day! For those of you who may not know, Pentecost is the celebration of the gift of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples. It’s frequently called the “birthday of the church,” because it marks the beginning of the proclamation of Jesus as Messiah outside the circle of his followers. Memorial Day, of course, is the day when we honor the men and women of our military who have died in the service of our country.

At first glance, these two holidays couldn’t be more different. Pentecost is a Christian holiday; while Memorial Day is celebrated by people of all faiths – and by people who have no faith at all. Memorial Day is an American holiday; while Christians all around the world join in the celebration of Pentecost. But the most glaring contrast is that Pentecost celebrates the Spirit of Jesus, who urged us to pray for our enemies and to follow in his way of peace; while Memorial Day is a reminder of all the wars that have taken place since the dawn of history.

This contrast between Pentecost and Memorial Day will cause many churches to choose this morning which holiday they will celebrate. Some will opt for Pentecost. They will place images of a dove in their sanctuary to remind worshippers of the Holy Spirit; and they will change the cloths on the altar to red. Other churches will choose to celebrate Memorial Day. The churches who do that will sing patriotic songs; and they’ll make sure that an American flag is displayed somewhere in the church. But celebrating only one holiday or the other suggests that somehow church and society don’t belong together. It forces us into a false choice. If we celebrate Pentecost on Sunday and save Memorial Day until Monday, we buy into the notion that religion is only for one day a week. We go to church on Sunday and think about the Holy Spirit; but on Monday, the Holy Spirit may have no part at all in our lives. On the other hand, if we celebrate only Memorial Day on Sunday and forget about Pentecost, we buy into the idea that our country is somehow more important than God’s Spirit.

I hope that we have found a middle way here in our worship this morning. We have prepared for both Pentecost and for Memorial Day! There are doves in the sanctuary (both on the church banners and on my stole), and the cloths on the altar are red. But we are also singing songs appropriate to Memorial Day; and the window in the narthex displays markers that remind us of the many wars in which our military men and women have fought and died. Does this make us schizophrenic? I hope not. I hope that we’re showing how our faith can inform the events of our nation. In a recent Pastoral Ponderings (my column in our church newsletter), I mentioned a man named Karl Barth. Barth was an influential theologian in the early part of the 20^th century. He advised pastors to preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. In Barth’s opinion, if we can’t apply our faith to our society, then our faith isn’t much good; and our society probably isn’t much good, either. It seems to me that on this Memorial Day/Pentecost Sunday, it might not be a bad idea to put our Bible in one hand and the morning newspaper in the other, and consider how one holiday can inform the other.

Let’s begin that process by considering the gift of the Holy Spirit. The early church understood that when a Christian is filled with the Spirit of God, it is evident in that Christian’s life. The letter from Paul to the Galatians contains a long list of the characteristics that a Christian displays when he or she is filled with the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That’s a good list. But it seems to me that there is one virtue that Paul has left off his list – courage. I’m convinced that the Spirit offers us courage as well as all these other good things. Now, when I talk about “courage,” I don’t mean “foolhardiness.” Bungee-jumping off a bridge without first checking the strength of the bungee cord isn’t courage; it’s stupidity! No, I’m talking about real courage – the courage to do what it takes for a cause that is a lot bigger than any one of us.

The apostles showed that kind of courage in proclaiming the gospel after they were filled with the Spirit at Pentecost. Peter faced a huge crowd on that first Pentecost, and he spoke out boldly as he proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah. He did the same thing when he was hauled in front of the Jewish ruling council; so much so that the book of Acts tells us that they were amazed at his “boldness.” The apostles didn’t let the threat of punishment, or hardship, or even execution stop them from proclaiming the good news of the Gospel to anyone who would listen. Their courage was, quite simply, astounding.

The scripture reading this morning was taken from one of Paul’s letters to the church in Corinth (II Corinthians 11:21-29). Did you take note of all the hardships that Paul experienced? It’s a very long list: prison, floggings, beatings, stoning, and shipwrecks, in addition to sometimes not knowing where his next meal was coming from. It takes real courage to face all those things! And no one was forcing Paul to spread the Gospel. After his conversion to Christianity on the Damascus road, he could have decided to stay home and drop out of sight. He might have simply written a letter to the Christian churches in the area that went something like this: “Hey, friends, I was wrong about that Jesus guy. I know now that he really is the Messiah. I’m so sorry if I’ve caused you any inconvenience with that persecution business! Let me know if there’s anything that I can do to make up for all the trouble that I’ve caused you.” But that’s not what Paul did. Paul put himself in harm’s way for the cause of Christianity – a cause that was way bigger than he was.

And that’s what our military men and women do every single day while they are serving our country. They put themselves in harm’s way for a cause that is way bigger than they are. Now, it’s true that they aren’t serving a religious cause. They are serving a country that is imperfect at best. They may not agree with all of its decisions. They may not even support the wars in which they are ordered to fight. But they put their lives on the line nevertheless for the sake of all the people who live in that country; and for the sake of people in many other countries around the world, as well. And many of them serve with a sacrificial courage that surely comes from the Spirit of God.

The most notable examples of this kind of courage are the recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force that can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the United States Armed Services. To date, there have been 3,459 recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. 81 of them are still alive. The most recent recipient is Specialist 4^th Class Leslie H. Sabo, Jr. Specialist Sabo served as a rifleman in the U.S. Army: Company B, 3^rd Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101^st Airborne Division. On May 10, 1970, Specialist Sabo and his platoon were conducting a reconnaissance patrol in Se San, Cambodia when they were ambushed from all sides by a large enemy force. Without hesitation, Specialist Sabo attacked one of the enemy flanks, drawing fire and ultimately forcing them to retreat. In order to re-supply ammunition, he sprinted across an open field to a wounded comrade. As he began to reload, an enemy grenade landed nearby. Specialist Sabo picked it up, threw it, and shielded his comrade with his own body, saving his comrade's life. Seriously wounded by the blast, Specialist Sabo nevertheless continued his attack, receiving several serious wounds from automatic weapons fire in the process. Mortally injured, he crawled towards an enemy bunker and threw in a grenade. The resulting explosion silenced the enemy fire, but at the cost of Specialist Sabo's own life. His courage and disregard for his own safety saved the lives of many of his platoon members. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor on May 16, just 11 days ago.

 
Jesus told his disciples, “Greater love has no one than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.” Being willing to lay down one’s life requires great courage – the kind of courage that only the Spirit is able to give us. On this Pentecost, let us give thanks for the Spirit that can fill us with enough courage to lay down our life for our friends – and on this Memorial Day Sunday, let us give thanks for our valiant military men and women who have done just that.

Abiding

How do we relate to a risen Savior? That's the question I consider in this sermon. In particular, I explore what it means to "abide in Christ." Exactly how we manage to "abide" is as individual as each person's relationship with God. But that we abide is crucial. If you choose to read this sermon, you might try to remember days when "abiding" was easy -- or days when it was very difficult. Can those memories help you meet the challenge of "abiding in Christ" in the future?

Time has gone on quickly, hasn’t it? It seems like just yesterday, it was Easter! But, in fact, next week is Pentecost already. We are almost out of the season of Eastertide. You may not think about the time between Easter and Pentecost as being a season of the church year; but it is. It focuses on one specific aspect of being a Christian, just like the other seasons of the church year do. Advent, for example, focuses on our need for a savior; and anticipates the unexpected way that God sometimes answers our needs. Lent, of course, is very different. Lent emphasizes our inability to follow the savior when he comes to us. Human sin comes to the forefront, together with our inability to follow Jesus to the cross. And next week will begin the season of Pentecost. During that season, we’ll reflect on the sometimes surprising places the Spirit leads us. But today – well, today we’re still in Eastertide. Eastertide focuses on how we respond to the risen Christ. That’s why the Christ candle has been on our altar ever since Easter Sunday. This candle signifies a risen Lord, one who is master of every time and place; one who is even master of death itself.

But how in the world do we relate to a risen savior? That’s the question that Eastertide asks us to consider. We know how to respond to the man Jesus. We listen to his teachings… we accept the guidance that he offers us… and we try to follow his example. But what do we do about a risen Christ? How can we relate to him? Jesus tried to prepare his disciples for just that problem when he instructed them in the upper room the evening before his death. The gospel of John relates a long sermon that Jesus offered his disciples. We can find it in chapters 13 through 17. You heard a very small piece of it in the scripture reading this morning (John 15:9-17). In this part of Jesus’ sermon, he instructs his disciples to “remain” in him; because that is the only way that they will be able to love one another in the way that Jesus wants them to.

“Remain” in the risen Christ. That’s what we’re told to do. And the word “remain” is a good translation of the Greek word that Jesus uses. The New International Version of the Bible uses the word “remain.” But I prefer the traditional translation “abide.” That’s the word in the King James Version. Jesus’ take-home message is that he wants his disciples to “live” with him – and in him – after his resurrection. And “remaining” isn’t quite the same as “abiding.” The word “remain” sounds like a command you’d give your dog Fido. “Stay, Fido! Remain!” And Fido, being a very well-trained dog, will “remain” there until you tell him that he can go someplace else. But “abide…” “Abide” is a place to live permanently! We might “remain” at the mall for a few hours; but we “abide” in our home. The word even sounds cozy! “Abide…” It calls up an image of a big, overstuffed chair in front of a crackling fire. As you put on your slippers and pick up the newspaper, you prepare to “abide” in a place of comfort and security. Your faithful dog FIdo comes over and flops down at your feet; and if you don’t sigh in contentment, he’ll do it for you. This is your home! It’s where you “abide.”

And many times, abiding in Christ is just like that. There are days when we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are wrapped in Jesus’ arms, abiding in the love and comfort of his presence. On those days, the presence of Christ is as close as our own heartbeat; and we know it. We face even major difficulties as though they were only minor inconveniences; because Jesus is right there, a part of us. Those are the days we cherish!

But sometimes, abiding in Christ isn’t quite that easy. Sometimes abiding in Christ takes everything you’ve got! Let me give you an example of what I mean. When I was a child, my parents owned a boat – a 30-foot cabin cruiser that we kept just outside of Port Clinton on the Lake Erie shore. When we took it out on the lake, the point was, of course, to “abide” in that boat. When the waters were calm, that was easy. But if Lake Erie got a little choppy – as Lake Erie tends to do, fairly frequently and with very little notice – then we had to hang on for dear life to “abide” in that boat! Sometimes it was all we could do to keep both feet on the deck. As the waves tossed our boat this way and that – up and down and side to side – we’d grab on to the sides to keep from being hurled into the water.

It sounds like life, doesn’t it? We get tossed from side to side and up and down; and sometimes we’re not sure that we’ll be able to hang on! We want to abide in the risen Christ, but our problems are so huge, and we get so tired of dealing with them, that we start to lose our grip on the side of the boat. Little by little, we begin to slide towards the water. We cling more tightly, desperate to hang on; but when an unexpected wave hits us, our grip fails; and we feel ourselves falling… But we don’t fall; because when we lose our grip, we realize that we are being held by our risen savior – the one who is Lord over the wind and the waves. Jesus is hanging on to us as tightly as we are hanging on to him! “Abiding” isn’t something that we have to do all by ourselves. Jesus helps us do it. There is no trouble, no obstacle, no problem so powerful that it can knock us out of the presence of the risen Christ, because he is helping us to abide there! Jesus has assured us that he not going to lose any one who is given to him by the Father. And that’s all of us! He’s not going to lose us; and we’re not going to lose him, whether we feel his presence or not! Whether we’re abiding in comfort or being tossed around by angry waves, Jesus will always help us to stay by his side. That’s what it means to have a risen Lord. He abides in us… and we abide in him. Forever!

I Don't Believe It!

It’s always fun to ask a group of kindergartners what they want to be when they grow up. The variety of answers that they give is just astounding! Some of their answers are predictable. “I want to be a firefighter… a doctor… a cowboy… an astronaut!” Others are more unexpected. I once knew a little girl who wanted to dig up dinosaur bones when she grew up! And some children – bless their hearts – even want to grow up to be pastors. But I will bet you any amount of money that no child has ever said that he or she wants to grow up to be a heretic. “Heretic” just isn’t a career of choice.

Part of the reason for that, of course, is that children don’t know what a heretic actually is. In case some of you don’t know, either – a heretic is someone whose ideas are outside the mainstream thinking of any particular group. For example, someone who didn’t believe that Jesus was God’s son would be a heretic – at least as far as Christians are concerned. A heretic thinks way outside the box involving matters of faith. Now, knowing that definition of a heretic, I’m quite sure that no child would ever want to grow up to be one! Children – and most of the rest of us, as well – don’t want to be seen as different. We don’t want to be “outside the box” when we’re compared with other people. It’s more comfortable to be “inside the box” along with everybody else. If we have some thoughts that aren’t quite what everybody else thinks, we usually keep them to ourselves. After all, we don’t want anybody to think that we’re weird, do we? But heretics refuse to quietly stay inside the box. In fact, really good heretics burst out of the box and voice their opinions loudly!  They are convinced that their thinking has something to offer to the world; and they simply will not be silenced.

Now, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that every heretic is wrong! Many heretics, in hindsight, are recognized to be quite right! Galileo was a heretic. He observed that the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around. But according to the Roman Catholic Church of his time, God had created the earth to be the center of the universe! Believing that the earth revolved around the sun was heresy! Another heretic was Martin Luther. He challenged the Roman Catholic Church on some of their most basic doctrines; and in the process, he started the Protestant Reformation. Without heretics like these two, the church would become hopelessly corrupt. That’s because heretics frequently correct the church when its thinking is one-sided. Heretics reevaluate old ideas in the light of their own, new experiences.

You might be surprised to learn that throughout history, some of the most influential heretics have been women! You heard the story of one of them in the scripture reading this morning. According to Matthew (15:21-28), a woman influenced Jesus to rethink the whole purpose of his ministry. And she wasn’t even Jewish. She was a Canaanite woman who lived along the Mediterranean coast north of Israel in the area of Tyre and Sidon. Now, Canaanites aren’t very well thought of in the Bible. Every good Jewish boy of Jesus’ time grew up learning that Canaanites were heathens – pagans who worshipped false gods and bowed down to idols. (Do you remember the god Baal from the Elijah stories? Baal was one of the Canaanite gods.) Canaanite women were especially dangerous.  Why, any Jewish man would rather kiss a pig fresh from the slops than associate with a Canaanite woman!

Matthew’s story shows us a Canaanite woman running after Jesus pleading with him to heal her daughter. And as a good Jewish man, Jesus wouldn’t have anything to do with her. He ignored her for as long as he could; but her yammering for help was finally more than Jesus could stand. So he told her, “It’s not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs!” Now, calling someone a “dog” in Jesus’ day was a terrible insult. It should have put a stop to her pestering. But it didn’t. In fact, she had a great comeback line. “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the little doggies get to eat the crumbs of bread that fall from the children’s table.”

What a marvelous heretic she was! Jewish thinking said that the Messiah’s ministry would only be for Jews. Jews were, after all, God’s chosen people; and God would send the Messiah to them. Certainly no Canaanite could expect to take part in the salvation that the Messiah was going to offer to the Jews! But that’s exactly what this Canaanite heretic was saying. “Surely, Lord,” she pleaded, “surely there is enough for everyone. Even if the Jews receive the lion’s share of God’s grace, there must be a little left over for me, too.” And because of her objection, Jesus changed his mind! We can almost see him do a double take… look at her more closely… ponder what she has just said to him… and realize that faith is found not just among the children of Israel. Even the least likely person – a Canaanite woman – could recognize the Messiah and call upon him for salvation. It takes a good, outside the box heretic to believe something like that! “Oh, woman,” Jesus replied, “great is your faith!” And because of that faith, Jesus healed her daughter.

Down through the ages, many women have indeed shown great faith. They have had the faith to believe that any religion that excludes a whole group of people isn’t a true religion at all; it’s a cult. They have had the faith to believe that sitting down quietly and keeping your mouth shut never causes any change. Some of them have even had the faith to believe that God is still speaking, even when religious authorities say that what God wants of us was settled long ago. Let me mention just a few of these faithful heretic women.

Christine de Pisan lived in 15^th century France, in an age when churchmen regarded women as evil seductresses or witches. She wrote two books. One illustrated the virtues of women as modest, gentle, and loving. The other argued against the notion that Eve’s behavior in the Garden of Eden brought sin into the world. In her opinion, it was unfair to try to pin all human sin on women. Besides, she pointed out, weren’t women the ones who remained faithful to Jesus during his crucifixion when all the men ran away?

Catherine of Sienna lived in Italy. In Catherine’s day, the church told women that marrying and bearing children was their only proper role in life. Catherine refused to marry her father’s choice of husband, and entered a religious order instead. She ministered to the townspeople when the Black Death swept over the city of Sienna and all the priests ran away to save themselves. She was instrumental in reforming the behavior of those priests. She even influenced the policies of the Pope. She is frequently pictured supporting the ship of the Christian church on her shoulder.

And let’s not forget Jarena Lee, a black woman who lived in 19^th century America, who wanted to preach the word of God. But a woman, preaching? Especially a black  woman! Religious authorities of that day wouldn’t allow it. But Jarena preached anyway. She said that she was powered by the “holy energy” of the Holy Spirit, the source of her voice and her courage.

They were heretics, every one of them! And they are joined today by Roman Catholic nuns who refuse to believe religious doctrine just because the Pope tells them to believe it. They are joined by Protestant mothers who go to Bible study and find out that, in many cases, what they learned as children is not what the Bible says at all! And they are joined by women who don’t belong to any church, but who are convinced that Christians who hate and judge and exclude others don’t have a clue as to what Christianity is really all about. “I don’t believe it,” they say. “I don’t believe that what I am being told is right. I will read the Bible for myself, I will think for myself, I will give my own opinion, and I will not be silenced!”

We don’t have to agree with them! But we should give thanks that their tradition of heresy – of disagreement and dissent and controversy – has helped to reform and guide the Christian faith that we hold so dear. I don’t know about you; but I, for one, am grateful for all the women throughout history who have said, “I don’t believe it!”

Passing on the Flame

Yesterday, I was honored to receive three young women into church membership through baptism and confirmation. They are in the sixth and seventh grades right now. My sermon considered the way that many churches marginalize young church members like these. In my opinion, they will become active church members as adults only if they are encouraged to use their Spirit-given gifts to the church right now. We older members also need to hear their perspective on faith and ministry, since they are natives in an electronic world to which most of us are only immigrants (and late immigrants, at that)! If you choose to read the complete sermon, think about how your own faith community views younger people. Do you allow them the opportunity to minister in Christ's name... or must they wait until they are older?

I hope that all of you are as proud as I am of these three young women. They have worked very hard since last September as members of my confirmation class. They have learned a lot! They have studied their faith – the sacraments, our UCC Statement of Faith, and the biblical basis behind all of it. They have learned about our denomination – our four-stranded history, the four settings of the UCC and what each one does, and how our local church governs itself. They have examined themselves for spiritual gifts, and each one has made a commitment to use at least one gift in our common ministry here at Nashville. And they will continue to work hard over the summer completing their service project to our congregation as we repaint the church nursery!

Of course, there are a couple of things that they can’t do yet, because they are, after all, young women. They’re still in school. They can’t drive yet. They still have some growing up to do. Their thinking and their experience has a long way to go! And because that is the case, the age of the youth who join the church through confirmation is a problem for lots of congregations. In these churches, young women and men like these are “second class members” until they reach voting age. These churches say, in effect, “We know you’re members… but until you’re grown up, you’re not really members.” And that’s unfortunate. We deny ourselves both their enthusiasm and their perspective when we say things like that.

It’s not a new problem. Even the apostle Paul had to deal with it. You just heard part of a letter that he wrote to Timothy, who was a leader in the church at Ephesus (in modern-day Turkey). In the middle of a long list of advice like “Don’t buy into old wives’ tales,” and “Train yourself in godliness,” Paul says this: “Let no one despise your youth.” The Message Bible, a modern paraphrase of the text, puts it this way: “Don’t let anyone put you down because you’re young.” Apparently the older Christians in Timothy’s congregation weren’t paying any attention to him because he was younger than they were. After all, he hadn’t lived nearly as long as they had. They were more experienced in the ways of the world. They thought that he needed to learn from them, not the other way around.

But the truth is that we all have something to learn from one another. We older church members need to listen to our younger church members as much as they need to listen to us. I told these young women that at our final meeting last week, and I think I surprised them. After all, they’re used to hearing people say “Listen to your elders.” And of course, they should listen to what older folks have to say. They know that. But we need to listen to them, too. After all, they are growing up in a world that is strange to those of us who grew up… well, some time ago. We “mature members” are like immigrants who have been dragged kicking and screaming into the unfamiliar country of Playstation, Facebook, and Twitter. If some of you don’t know what I’m talking about… well, that just proves my point. These young women were born into a world of instantaneous communication, global networking, and multiculturalism. They have never known life without cable TV, cell phones, and the internet! And that’s OK. Their world is where the church is headed. In fact, their world is not just the future of the church; it’s the present reality of the church! Maybe it would be a good idea for us to ask them what faith means for their generation – and then listen to them when they tell us!

You may have noticed that I titled these remarks “Passing on the Flame” instead of “Passing on the Torch.” I did that deliberately. When a torch is passed, it stays the same. The torch doesn’t change in the process. This summer, while we are awaiting the start of the Olympic Games in London, we will watch the Olympic torch as it is passed from Athens to Moscow to Beijing to San Francisco to New York and finally to its home in London. During that entire, long journey, it will be the same torch. It simply moves country to country.

Passing on a flame, however, is a different story. A flame may be kindled by one person, but when it is passed to another, it becomes their own. The person who receives it has to care for it. It might burn more brightly for its new caretaker, or it might flicker low. Without the proper care, it might even go out. But it is certain that the flame won’t burn the same way for the person who receives it. The Christian faith is like that flame. It will burn differently for these young people than it does for us. It will take different forms. It will burn in different places. It will touch different people. And while they may be able to contain it, they won’t be able to control it any more than we can. A flame, after all – especially the flame of the Spirit – has a mind of its own!

So, you three young women who have just been confirmed into church membership – today we pass the flame of our faith on to you, just as it was passed on to us. Take care of it. Don’t let it go out. Help it to burn brightly in places and ways that we older folks can never even imagine! And then – when the time is right – pass it on to someone else, so that it can burn brightly in new ways for them, too.