Strength In Diversity
By Rev. Steven R Mitchell
2nd Sunday of Epiphany, January 17, 2010
First Cong UCC Rock Springs, WY
I Cor. 12:1-11; John 2:1-11
This morning, in churches all across the country, preachers are standing in pulpits like this one and delivering their annual Martin Luther King, Jr, Day sermon. As I was reviewing today’s lectionary selections, it seemed obvious to me that I should focus on the reading coming from I Corinthians as it deals with the message of diversity, which is nicely summed up in verse 12, “The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.” For many of us, especially those of us who lived through the civil rights movement era, look to Dr. King as an icon to “justice” issues and a name that comes to our minds when we hear the question asked, “Does God still send us prophets?” In Dr. Kings martyrdom we are strengthened in our confidence that he was indeed a man sent from God, showered with gifts, who will be remembered for his eloquent words, his courageous deeds, and his deep and abiding commitment to non-violence as the ultimate form of Christian resistance to injustice, even in the face of police dogs with snarling teeth and the taunts by “nice, Christian” Americans- twentieth century Americans who reacted angrily and self-righteously when a people demanded justice too long delayed. Justice too long delayed, Dr King said, is justice denied.
As each year goes by and we remember Dr. King with our sermons and singing and even our renewed commitment to justice for all of God’s children, it seems to me that it’s rather tempting to lift up this prophet, onto a pedestal, much as the church has done with Jesus.UCC study guide In the movie Torch Song Trilogy, when confronted by his mother about trusting her enough to speak the truth, Arnold responds in reference to his deceased partner, “It’s so much easier to love the dead.” The inference being that it is easier for us after someone is gone to look at their good qualities in our own timing, than to recognize their qualities while we are being confronted at the time with their messages that differ from our own understanding of the issue.
It is this understanding then that I found myself continually coming back throughout this past week to the other lectionary selection, the Gospel of John. For it is John’s story that helps provide the foundation in which Paul is able to build upon in the understanding of how each member of the body is essential to the working of the entire body. So if you will bear with me, I will try to be true to the memory of Dr King’s efforts as I focus some of my thoughts and understanding of what John is saying in todays Gospel reading. For as Arnold says, “it is easier to love the dead” as the further away we are from the time that Jesus walked this earth the easier it is for us to lose sight of what the true meaning of his ministry is about and by doing so we elevate the message to a point to where it becomes so sacred that it is unapproachable and untouchable and ultimately non-meaningful and relevant to today’s audiences.
This morning’s Gospel reading begins with: On the third day; even though this is the beginning of a new chapter, if we only look at this selection, one is left wanting to understand what has happened during the first two days and since the rest of the Gospel readings through Epiphany come from the book of Luke, I think it bears just a little recap of what has happened up to this point as a way of helping understand what is actually being said beyond the obvious reading of the turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana.
If we go back to the first chapter in John we read where the writer is establishing the Divinity of Jesus through the cousin of Jesus, John the baptizer! After the writer establishes that Jesus is baptized, he shows where John the baptizer announcing Jesus as the Messiah, the chosen one of God to lead the people of Israel to establish or to many, re-establish their Kingdom. Yes, I am saying that the early portion of Jesus’ ministry was viewed by the larger masses that followed him as a political movement.
The writer of this gospel moves from the day of Jesus’ baptism to saying the “next day” that two of John the baptizer’s disciples run after Jesus after hearing Johns declaration that “here is the one I speak of” “here is the Messiah”. One disciple is identified as Andrew; the other is not named but can be concluded to be John the beloved who is also the author of this gospel. They go and stay with Jesus after they decide to leave John the baptizer and follow Jesus. It is during that first day that Andrew goes to his brother Peter and brings him onboard. Then there is another, “next day”, so on day two, they come across another man named Philip, who is so impressed with Jesus that he goes and gets his brother Nathanael who also decides to follow Jesus. At the close of the second day, Jesus leaves with five disciples for the town of Cana in Galilee to attend a wedding.
It is at this wedding “On the third day”, that we learn that Jesus’ mother and other brothers are introduced into the story. We also hear Jesus state that, “My time has not yet come." One of the major points in today’s reading hinges on the concept of “timing.” We also read “He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him” with the first recorded miracle; that of turning water into wine. But we need to finish this chapter to make total sense of what we are asked to focus on this morning. After the wedding is over we read that Jesus, his disciples and his mother and brothers all leave and travel down to Capernaum and stay there for several days. We then read that during that time, Passover is nearing and Jesus goes to Jerusalem, to the temple and sees the temple being used as a place of business. He is enraged and turns over the tables of the money changers. He is confronted by the Pharisees with, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?" Jesus then presents them with his first challenge by saying, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
I hope that you are following the language and the days that are being presented within the first two chapters by John; for they are reminiscent of the theology of the creation stories, in regard to timing and his way of showing the divinity of Jesus as being God’s son. The use of the “on the first day” that of creating out of the void, light; then, “on the fourth day” planets, moon and sun. If you read the six days of creation in Genesis not as six separate days but as a re-telling of three events, meaning on the first day and the fourth day as the same day, the second day and the fifth day as one day, and the third day and the sixth day as another day. Then on the seventh day God rested, you will see John relating God’s authority of dominion over His creation and thus, Jesus’ authority to do the ministry that Jesus as challenging the Pharisees with. You can also start to see how early humanity understood creation as first the creation of the heavens and earth; next the development of life in the oceans and thirdly life finally developing on dry land. Sounds a bit like our understanding of the evolutionary process.
John, then lets us know that there is a correlation between the “3rd day” of Jesus’ ministry being exposed at the wedding in Cana and his statement of “destroying this temple and in 3 days I will rebuild it.” Timing is very important in today’s lesson. There is a tremendous metaphor being presented by John’s story, as Jesus selects the “purification vessels” as the vehicle of providing wine; the ritual of each guest who arrives to this celebration has to be ceremonially washed, thus purified before being able to attend this event. The idea that these vessels were empty is another important statement by John about Jesus’ divinity. Then the statement by the host of the wedding ceremony making a statement to the groom saying, “you have saved the best wine till the last” is another statement to Jesus’ divinity. John is using all of this to represent the understanding the old way, the temple law was empty, no longer working, no longer being a way of salvation for people and that through Jesus there was a new life, giving way to “live life to its fullest.” The water had to be fetched to fill the empty ceremonial jars, meaning it had to be drawn from a well or from a river; water represents a living source, a necessity of sustaining life, the wine we look to as the new covenant as we come to the communion table, as Jesus re-established its meaning as “new life”. The underlying message in today’s gospel is that the old structure of the church was empty, dead and that by the coming of Jesus, there was a new order; there was a moving away from the law to grace.
How does this affect us in today’s church if we say that we are living in grace since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? I believe the message is ongoing. For life to exist there needs to be the ability to change, for death comes when life becomes stagnant. For the church to exist, it needs to “re-invent” itself with each new generation. With each generation, there lies a danger of becoming empty, having nothing to offer that is relevant to the new generation. I believe this was the conflict that we read about between Jesus and the Pharisees. Jesus was presenting a message of how to reconnect a relationship to God that had become meaningless through “laws of do’s and don’ts” and no longer had any meaning for these who lived under the law; thereby not allowing for spiritual growth, this connecting with God.
This happens to every congregation; there is a time when the church is vibrant and its ministry is reaching not only its members but also out into the community, where there is excitement about what is happening and there is a growing of the Spirit among its members. Then comes the next generation and there is not the same connection to meaningful activities that provides for the same spiritual growth. This then creates a conflict, whether it is open or not. But something will happen, either the new generation will fall away because their spirituality isn’t being nurtured, much like a leaf on a tree will wither and fall off the tree due to the lack of nourishment; or the new generation will try to establish methods and activities that will be meaningful to them so that they will grow spiritually. Out and out conflict will erupt when the older way of doing things is challenged by a new way of doing things, just as what was happing between the Pharisees and Jesus. It happens between parents and their teenagers. When there is an inability as parents to release our children as they become adults and let them form their own life styles, the tension becomes great and sometimes a breaking off of contact.
The challenge for any church is just like that of parents as their children grow up and become adults; that of balancing the foundations that have been taught with the building of the needs of the next generation upon it. That moving from the law into the living under grace. It isn’t an easy movement but it is one that has to happen. Otherwise, the ultimate outcome is death of the once vibrant institution.
Now we come to the melding of today’s gospel with that of the lesson from the Apostle Paul as he addresses the importance of each member of the body to make a complete “whole” and that the whole cannot function without its parts. In this country, the established church used the scriptures to justify slavery. It took a war between the states to abolish it. In this nation, we used the same bible to keep women from having equal rights as men. The war for women’s suffrage was won, I believe, in the bedroom. We use the same bible today to continue to justify violence against those who do not use the same name in their religious beliefs. I can remember when Dr King was alive and calling our nation into account for its refusal to recognize its injustice through segregation because of bigotry, that good “Christians” tried to demean “truth” by using scripture to justify evil. This is not the message of “love” and “justice” that Jesus gave his life for. We seem to never learn the lesson of the simple song we learn as children, “Jesus loves me this I know for the bible tells me so.” Or “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children in the world.” So you tell God, at what point do these little children no longer become precious in his sight? When do some of us no longer become God’s children? Jesus was crucified because of that question. Dr King was murdered for challenging our country in not allowing all the children in.
I would like to close by sharing a piece of a sermon Dr King spoke just two months before he was murdered in the name of preserving our culture for the future of our children.
"Every now and then," Dr. King said, "I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral. And I don't think of it in a morbid sense. Every now and then I ask myself, 'What is it that I would want said?' And I leave the word to you this morning….
"I'd like somebody to mention that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others. I'd like for somebody to say that day, that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody. I want you to say that day, that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day, that I did try, in my life, to feed the hungry. And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say, on that day, that I did try, in my life, to visit those who were in prison. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity."
The Apostle Paul wrote, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
We here at First Congregational, have some very exciting opportunities coming before us as we meet at the end of the month for our annual meeting; we are going to be asked to start thinking about who we are and who will we let into our family and who will we exclude. We are going to be asked to what degree are we willing to make this a ministry of God and at what cost are we willing to do this. We are at a point, I believe, that is representative of the Wedding at Cana. I wonder sometimes, if our wine has run out; the question is, “are we going to let Jesus fill the empty jars to the brim with living water and allow the new and best wine to now be served?” Only you can answer this question. Amen
Sunday, January 17, 2010
1st Sunday After Advent
From Water to Fire
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
1st Sunday after Epiphany, 1/10/10
Isaiah 43: 1-7; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22
1st Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY
Today is the First Sunday after Epiphany. This year, Epiphany came on Wednesday. Traditionally, Epiphany is the day that we would read the story about the three wise men from the East who traveled to Bethlehem, looking for the new King of the Jews! The definition of the word Epiphany can mean: manifestation or revelation or showing and suggests a shining light; thus the story of three foreigners traveling to find a new king being lead by a bright shining star. This story also speaks to the revealing of the Messiah not just to the Jews, which came with the telling of shepherds on a hillside, but to the world beyond the Jewish Kingdom, or rather to the greater world as depicted by these three men coming from the East.
All through the Advent season, we were constantly reading where God was speaking through Angels to various people such as Joseph and Mary, as well as Zechariah in preparation to the birth of Jesus. Then of the news of Jesus’ birth being delivered to the shepherds by not just one angel but through a host of angels! There was a constant phrase of re-assurance being given to ever one who was encountering these celestial beings with the words, “do not be afraid!” Angels through the first three chapters of Luke come at the bidding of God’s Spirit as it intertwined with life here on earth.
Yet angels are not the only reference within the Bible that is used in the descriptions of God’s Spirit moving among humanity. All through its pages, you can read that people interpreted God’s Spirit moving among them in the form of “water, wind and fire.” All three of these elements can bring terror to the hearts of those who experience them. One only needs to think about being on I-80 between Rock Springs and Rawlins in the middle of a blizzard to understand the feeling of fear about the possibility of being stranded; or during a good old Kansas storm as you huddle in the corner of your basement, and hear the roar of what sounds like a freight train going through your house, as a tornado sweeps clean everything in its path; or that sinking feeling as one watching on T.V. and sees Yellowstone National Park, one of our national treasures being consumed by a rushing wall of fire that was started by a bolt of lightning.
And yet all three of these have a mystical quality, too: water is the stuff of life – beginning with birth, we thirst for it all our days; fire brings light in the darkest night and heat in the coldest winter; and wind – wind is the most evocative sign of the Spirit moving among us; in fact, the word Spirit in this week’s reading from the Gospel of Luke can be translated also as “wind”, and when the heaven was opened, the Spirit descended like a dove upon Jesus, standing there in the River Jordan. One can imagine that it felt like a great wind blowing through. Reflection by Kate Huey
Epiphany’s in one’s life generally do not happen with occurring frequencies. For me, the last epiphany that I can point to occurred in 1989, at 32,000 feet above the earth on a return flight to Kittitas, WA after attending 4 day convocation on ministering to those people living with AIDS. Although a dove didn’t descend from heaven and land on my head, I did hear God speak words that at that time of my life were very much needed; that I was loved by God and She was well pleased with who I am. These were life changing words to me, words that not only brought a true sense of peace, but also the courage that I needed to face life openly.
I am not sure how many of you here this morning can recall your baptism; if you were raised as a Congregationalist or Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or Lutheran, you were most likely baptized as an infant and not able to recall that experience. For those of us who come from the more so called “Evangelical” side of the Church, where “believers baptism” is practiced, probably do recall your baptism. I don’t know about you, but I had grown up in Sunday school hearing year after year about how when Jesus was baptized a voice boomed from Heaven saying “you are my son, of whom I am well pleased” and then a white dove came out of the clouds and descended upon Jesus’ head. So, when I was ready to be baptized at age 14, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect at my baptism.
I was being baptized in the tradition of Baptists, which meant that when you were baptized you were dunked totally under water. Now I wasn’t naïve enough to think that God’s voice was going to be booming out about how proud he was of me as I came up out of the water, or even that a dove would mysteriously appear in the church and land on my head. I mean, I wasn’t born yesterday and I had seen plenty of baptism and nothing like that had ever happened to any of those people. But I did expect as I was coming up out of the water, to see the clouds part and would be able to see the gates of Heaven. You can imagine my disappointment when that didn’t happen. I instantly thought that I hadn’t been baptized correctly or worse, that it didn’t take. So, I did experience the water, but I didn’t experience any wind or abnormal lighting effects. Those words that I was hoping to hear at age 14 didn’t occur until for 22 more years when I was 36; not in a baptismal tank but jetting through the air at 32,000 feet at 630+ mile per hour; for Jesus it was with a dove descending, for me it was in mid air.
In the book of Acts, we read that: the apostles in Jerusalem had learned that Samaria had accepted the word of God, and they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Acts 8:14-17
I realize that this is one of those selections of scripture that the Charismatic Christians and Pentecostals use to fortify their understanding of being able to speak in tongues, or in a language that is foreign to them as prove that they have been “baptized” by the Holy Spirit and somehow hold a higher ranking on the spiritual ladder in this life. I don’t wish to say that “speaking in tongues” isn’t a valid gift from God. But when I read this particular scripture, what I understand it to say doesn’t pertain to “speaking in tongues.”
What I see in this selection of scripture speaks to the growth that comes out of one’s baptism. You see, our Spirituality isn’t something that becomes “mature” with the act of being Baptized. Our spirituality is something that comes with growth. In Luke, we read where the dove didn’t descend upon Jesus until after He prayed. Throughout the entire Gospel of Luke we will read where “prayer” is the center of Jesus’ life. I believe that we are never truly mature spiritually until we die and join God in our spiritual bodies, but through our baptism we start that journey of growing, through studying God’s word, reading and reflecting upon inspirational writings outside of the Bible, and through the act of prayer, lots and lots of prayer. If baptism is the foundation of our awareness of God, then prayer is the corner stone to that building of a relationship with God. Paul likens our bodies to being the Temples of God; it is through prayer that we allow the Holy Spirit to thrive within these temples.
I wish to close with a story that comes from Marilynne Robinson’s book, Gilead:
The narrator of the book is an elderly minister who knows he’s about to die after a long and steady but fairly quiet life as a pastor. He is writing to his young son, the child of a late-in-life marriage to a much younger woman. One of the story’s he is relating comes from his own childhood, being a son of a minister himself. It was a story of him and another preacher’s kid who decided to baptize a litter of kittens. The boys took this all very seriously, he says, but the mother cat didn’t, and she interrupted their little service and took the kittens away right in mid-baptism. When the boy asked his father the pastor “in the most offhand way imaginable what exactly would happen to a cat if one were to, say, baptize it,” his father gave him a stern response that the sacraments must always be treated and regarded with the greatest respect. The narrator remembers, “That wasn’t really an answer to my question. We did respect the sacraments, but we thought the whole world of those cats. I got his meaning, though, and I did no more baptizing until I was ordained.”
Now, at the end of his life and after many years of baptizing the faithful of his flock, the old pastor looks back on the day he baptized the cats: “I still remember,” he says, “how those warm little brows felt under the palm of my hand. Everyone has petted a cat, but to touch one like that, with the pure intention of blessing it, is a very different thing. It stays in the mind. For years we would wonder what, from a cosmic viewpoint, we had done to them. It still seems to me to be a real question. There is a reality in blessing, which I take baptism to be, primarily. It doesn’t enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that. I have felt it pass through me, so to speak. The sensation is of really knowing a creature; I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your own mysterious life at the same time.”
Baptism, it is an acknowledgement of God’s blessing upon the life of the person being baptized. It is the starting point in which the stir of the Holy Spirit begins. It is the coming from water to fire. It is prayer that nurtures and strengthens the spirit within us. Today we have the opportunity to acknowledge and re-affirm our beginning, our baptism, our blessing! Amen
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
1st Sunday after Epiphany, 1/10/10
Isaiah 43: 1-7; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3: 15-17, 21-22
1st Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY
Today is the First Sunday after Epiphany. This year, Epiphany came on Wednesday. Traditionally, Epiphany is the day that we would read the story about the three wise men from the East who traveled to Bethlehem, looking for the new King of the Jews! The definition of the word Epiphany can mean: manifestation or revelation or showing and suggests a shining light; thus the story of three foreigners traveling to find a new king being lead by a bright shining star. This story also speaks to the revealing of the Messiah not just to the Jews, which came with the telling of shepherds on a hillside, but to the world beyond the Jewish Kingdom, or rather to the greater world as depicted by these three men coming from the East.
All through the Advent season, we were constantly reading where God was speaking through Angels to various people such as Joseph and Mary, as well as Zechariah in preparation to the birth of Jesus. Then of the news of Jesus’ birth being delivered to the shepherds by not just one angel but through a host of angels! There was a constant phrase of re-assurance being given to ever one who was encountering these celestial beings with the words, “do not be afraid!” Angels through the first three chapters of Luke come at the bidding of God’s Spirit as it intertwined with life here on earth.
Yet angels are not the only reference within the Bible that is used in the descriptions of God’s Spirit moving among humanity. All through its pages, you can read that people interpreted God’s Spirit moving among them in the form of “water, wind and fire.” All three of these elements can bring terror to the hearts of those who experience them. One only needs to think about being on I-80 between Rock Springs and Rawlins in the middle of a blizzard to understand the feeling of fear about the possibility of being stranded; or during a good old Kansas storm as you huddle in the corner of your basement, and hear the roar of what sounds like a freight train going through your house, as a tornado sweeps clean everything in its path; or that sinking feeling as one watching on T.V. and sees Yellowstone National Park, one of our national treasures being consumed by a rushing wall of fire that was started by a bolt of lightning.
And yet all three of these have a mystical quality, too: water is the stuff of life – beginning with birth, we thirst for it all our days; fire brings light in the darkest night and heat in the coldest winter; and wind – wind is the most evocative sign of the Spirit moving among us; in fact, the word Spirit in this week’s reading from the Gospel of Luke can be translated also as “wind”, and when the heaven was opened, the Spirit descended like a dove upon Jesus, standing there in the River Jordan. One can imagine that it felt like a great wind blowing through. Reflection by Kate Huey
Epiphany’s in one’s life generally do not happen with occurring frequencies. For me, the last epiphany that I can point to occurred in 1989, at 32,000 feet above the earth on a return flight to Kittitas, WA after attending 4 day convocation on ministering to those people living with AIDS. Although a dove didn’t descend from heaven and land on my head, I did hear God speak words that at that time of my life were very much needed; that I was loved by God and She was well pleased with who I am. These were life changing words to me, words that not only brought a true sense of peace, but also the courage that I needed to face life openly.
I am not sure how many of you here this morning can recall your baptism; if you were raised as a Congregationalist or Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, or Lutheran, you were most likely baptized as an infant and not able to recall that experience. For those of us who come from the more so called “Evangelical” side of the Church, where “believers baptism” is practiced, probably do recall your baptism. I don’t know about you, but I had grown up in Sunday school hearing year after year about how when Jesus was baptized a voice boomed from Heaven saying “you are my son, of whom I am well pleased” and then a white dove came out of the clouds and descended upon Jesus’ head. So, when I was ready to be baptized at age 14, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect at my baptism.
I was being baptized in the tradition of Baptists, which meant that when you were baptized you were dunked totally under water. Now I wasn’t naïve enough to think that God’s voice was going to be booming out about how proud he was of me as I came up out of the water, or even that a dove would mysteriously appear in the church and land on my head. I mean, I wasn’t born yesterday and I had seen plenty of baptism and nothing like that had ever happened to any of those people. But I did expect as I was coming up out of the water, to see the clouds part and would be able to see the gates of Heaven. You can imagine my disappointment when that didn’t happen. I instantly thought that I hadn’t been baptized correctly or worse, that it didn’t take. So, I did experience the water, but I didn’t experience any wind or abnormal lighting effects. Those words that I was hoping to hear at age 14 didn’t occur until for 22 more years when I was 36; not in a baptismal tank but jetting through the air at 32,000 feet at 630+ mile per hour; for Jesus it was with a dove descending, for me it was in mid air.
In the book of Acts, we read that: the apostles in Jerusalem had learned that Samaria had accepted the word of God, and they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Acts 8:14-17
I realize that this is one of those selections of scripture that the Charismatic Christians and Pentecostals use to fortify their understanding of being able to speak in tongues, or in a language that is foreign to them as prove that they have been “baptized” by the Holy Spirit and somehow hold a higher ranking on the spiritual ladder in this life. I don’t wish to say that “speaking in tongues” isn’t a valid gift from God. But when I read this particular scripture, what I understand it to say doesn’t pertain to “speaking in tongues.”
What I see in this selection of scripture speaks to the growth that comes out of one’s baptism. You see, our Spirituality isn’t something that becomes “mature” with the act of being Baptized. Our spirituality is something that comes with growth. In Luke, we read where the dove didn’t descend upon Jesus until after He prayed. Throughout the entire Gospel of Luke we will read where “prayer” is the center of Jesus’ life. I believe that we are never truly mature spiritually until we die and join God in our spiritual bodies, but through our baptism we start that journey of growing, through studying God’s word, reading and reflecting upon inspirational writings outside of the Bible, and through the act of prayer, lots and lots of prayer. If baptism is the foundation of our awareness of God, then prayer is the corner stone to that building of a relationship with God. Paul likens our bodies to being the Temples of God; it is through prayer that we allow the Holy Spirit to thrive within these temples.
I wish to close with a story that comes from Marilynne Robinson’s book, Gilead:
The narrator of the book is an elderly minister who knows he’s about to die after a long and steady but fairly quiet life as a pastor. He is writing to his young son, the child of a late-in-life marriage to a much younger woman. One of the story’s he is relating comes from his own childhood, being a son of a minister himself. It was a story of him and another preacher’s kid who decided to baptize a litter of kittens. The boys took this all very seriously, he says, but the mother cat didn’t, and she interrupted their little service and took the kittens away right in mid-baptism. When the boy asked his father the pastor “in the most offhand way imaginable what exactly would happen to a cat if one were to, say, baptize it,” his father gave him a stern response that the sacraments must always be treated and regarded with the greatest respect. The narrator remembers, “That wasn’t really an answer to my question. We did respect the sacraments, but we thought the whole world of those cats. I got his meaning, though, and I did no more baptizing until I was ordained.”
Now, at the end of his life and after many years of baptizing the faithful of his flock, the old pastor looks back on the day he baptized the cats: “I still remember,” he says, “how those warm little brows felt under the palm of my hand. Everyone has petted a cat, but to touch one like that, with the pure intention of blessing it, is a very different thing. It stays in the mind. For years we would wonder what, from a cosmic viewpoint, we had done to them. It still seems to me to be a real question. There is a reality in blessing, which I take baptism to be, primarily. It doesn’t enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that. I have felt it pass through me, so to speak. The sensation is of really knowing a creature; I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your own mysterious life at the same time.”
Baptism, it is an acknowledgement of God’s blessing upon the life of the person being baptized. It is the starting point in which the stir of the Holy Spirit begins. It is the coming from water to fire. It is prayer that nurtures and strengthens the spirit within us. Today we have the opportunity to acknowledge and re-affirm our beginning, our baptism, our blessing! Amen
Friday, January 8, 2010
2nd Sunday of Christmas, 1st Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY
The Greatness of God’s Love
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
Jeremiah 31:7-14; Ephesians 1:3-14; John 1: 1-18
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 1/3/10
Today is the second Sunday of Christmas (please note I say “of” and not “after”), as those who are more in tune with the Christian Calendar understand that we celebrate 12 days of Christmas. Next week we start the season of Epiphany and by the second week in February we begin the season of Lent with the observance of Ash Wednesday. For those who like to follow any of the afternoon Soap Operas, I should think that this time of the year can be quit confusing and possibly frustrating. For in the Soaps, you could miss watching for 5 months and when you tune back in, the plot has only unfolded a mere hour. Since I was last with you, on Christmas Eve, celebrating the birth of Jesus, in a matter of 3 days, Jesus went from being an infant to a preconscious pre-teen of twelve, and next Sunday as we celebrate the first Sunday of Epiphany, we once again go back to the infancy of Jesus with the visit of the three wise men.
Yet isn’t that really a reflection on life itself? Many times whatever we are doing today in way of tasks, we must take time out to revisit and address something that has happened previously; say last week or a month ago, or even a year ago or even further back in time. It is a simple fact that what we are doing today has its presence because of what we did yesterday or the day before, or the week before that and even on decisions and actions that we took decades ago.
When you look at the placement of the stories and books within what we call the Bible, their placements are reflective of the understanding that something has happened before the current story. The name of the first book in the Hebrew Bible, Genesis depicts “the beginning” or “the start of”; even the first story tells of the beginning of life on this planet. The Christian Bible starts off with 4 books (called the Gospels) speaking about the person that we look to as the founder of our faith and then is followed by the Epistles which speaks to the spreading of the Christian faith and the teachings by which the early church started to incorporate as standards in which to live by.
Two of the Gospels, Matthew and Luke start their stories off with the birth of Jesus. For Matthew, the beginning comes with the explanation of Jesus’ human lineage, tracing it back to Ruth and Boaz. For Luke, we start with the lives of Mary and Joseph. In the Gospel of Mark, the author begins with Jesus’ ministry and ends with his crucifixion (somewhere down the road, someone added the story of the resurrection.) With the Gospel of John, which is where a portion of today’s readings come from, the writer speaks to the beginning of Jesus not through family lineage but rather beyond time itself, the beginning being with God and of God and in God. Hear these words once again:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”
As we read this first segment of scripture, our understand of what it is saying will be influenced by what we have been taught from the pulpit in the past as well as what we may have learned in other settings within the church system such as: Sunday school, youth groups and bible studies, or through teachers found on the religious radio and television stations. Our understanding of the meaning of this text will also be influenced by what we have experienced outside of the church’s teachings, such as social structures, ones level of educational background, the economic level of one’s back ground (meaning growing up poor, lower-middle class, middle-middle class, upper-middle class, or just plain rich), the ethnic and cultural background (meaning African-American, Northern European, Irish, Middle-eastern, Native American and Asian to mention just a few) as well as geographical background (the deep south, New England states, Mid-west, Southwest, Pacific Northwest, Northern Plaines states or the Rocky Mountain region); all of this plays into our understanding, our interpretation of not just this scripture but all scripture.
I hope that for everyone here this morning, you have had the marvelous experience of realizing that each time you read scripture it is saying something new to you. The reason for this is because of what has happened within your life between the last time you read that passage to the present reading of that passage. From time to time I like to go back to some of my old sermons and see what I found of interest in that reading as compared to what I am focusing in on currently. It is the stillspeaking God when we find something new in scripture!
Since I was on Holiday this past week and feeling a time crunch to make sure I had a sermon for today, I looked at the sermon that corresponds to today’s lectionary reading. It was on Jan 5, 1986, fresh out of Seminary that I first struggled with today’s lectionary texts. I discovered that I worked on the Ephesians text and not on John’s. Today, however, I found John as the text that most interested me. More specifically about the meaning of the use “word” and “light”. Are these two words meaning the same thing or are there just the obvious differences?
As I mentioned just a few minutes ago, the 4 Gospels had their way of explaining and justifying to their original audience that Jesus was the Messiah that they were waiting for. With John, he was explaining Jesus’ authority as not being based on an earthly kingdom but rather of a Heavenly Kingdom as he uses the imagery of Jesus being with God as well as apart of God. John definitely refers to Jesus as being the “Word” and that the “word” is what gave life. We have to recall the original creation stories as it was God, who with a “word” created all life as we understand as well as what we have yet to understand. It was God, breathing “life” into creation that gave it activity. So from Johns argument, Jesus’ authority comes not from his lineage, but rather because he was with God and of God before earth came into existence. It is from this reality that Jesus is able to provide life for all of creation through his death, because Jesus was a part of creation to begin with.
John moves from establishing Jesus as the life giver to also defending the idea that Jesus was not overcome by evil, but rather that Jesus gave up his life willingly in the phrase, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” The idea here of course is that God cannot be overcome by evil. This is where the inner play of the words “light” and “darkness” start to come into play. The idea of darkness is the opposite of the idea of light. Darkness is used to describe evil and light is used to describe good. Remember that in the creation stories, God pronounced all that was created as “good”. The concept of darkness didn’t occur until Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden tends to convey the idea of living in harmony with God and that by not living in the garden is living life away from God or living life in darkness.
As John develops his understanding of Jesus, he uses this phrase, “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” So the “word” which was Jesus, became life, from life came “the light” for all people; hence my fascination with the word “light”. What does “light” ultimately mean? If we were in seminary and I was your professor, I could spend over a month, chewing on this word and its meaning. However, I am going to give you a conclusion without the pain of arriving there yourselves. The word “light”, to my current understanding comes to mean, “Truth”. The life that Jesus has brought to us is “Truth” toward understanding God. If we understand God, we then will have the desire to act in the manor that God acts, or at least that is the underlying hope we have as Christians.
John finishes this section of his treaty with this statement: The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John is letting us know that by way of Jesus, humanity no longer has to experience God through the law, but rather we know God because of grace and truth. As we go through out the rest of the church year we will be learning the concepts of “grace and truth.” Through Jesus’ life we are also able to see that the church is not stagnate, but evolving and growing. Once we were under the law, something that was condemning, but through Christ, we live under grace, the active process of redemption of forgiving and of growth; an ever speaking God, not one who has nothing more to reveal.
This redemption is best expressed in Ephesians, where Paul writes: In Jesus you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in Jesus, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people…” There is a process, a flow to what is being said here: first we hear, and then we believe what we have heard and through that believe we receive the fruit of what we believe.
This week while on Holiday, along with the opportunity to visit with many of my friends in Seattle, I took time to read and start preparing myself for upcoming conversations that I will be participating in with the Union Church in Green River as they begin to start learning about the topic of Homosexuality. The book that I was reading was recommended to me by their pastor, Curtis Tutterrow as one of the books that is a springboard for their discussions. I also had the opportunity to watch one of the Box Office hit movies, Avatar, which deals with the theme of one group of people feeling empowerment over creatures that they deemed less valuable, thereby able to justify their destructive behavior toward these lesser creatures.
These may sound like two unrelated subjects but actually they are very much related. What struck me from the book that I just finished titled, Crisis, 40 stories revealing the personal, social and religious pain and trauma of growing up gay in America edited by Mitchell Gold and the movie Avatar, which brought back to memory a film released back in 1985, titled, The Mission, which depicted the decimation of a complete culture in South America as the price to keep peace between Spain and Portugal by the Roman Catholic Church as these two countries were vying for ownership of land in South America, is just how powerful the church has been in our culture and continues to be. We are the voice the “light” that John writes about. We are the voice that is charged to bring “truth” to the larger community. Yet, so many times the church has acted in “darkness” and not as “the light” of the world as it used Gods word to promote slavery, laws against inter-racial marriage, hatred toward the Jews (especially in Nazi Germany), the dehumanization of America’s Native Indians and continues the hatred toward non-heterosexuals. I don’t think it is generally done out of malicious acts but rather more times than not, it has come out of ignorance and a non-willingness to look at truth, when it challenges our own person biases.
As we come to the Christ table today and take part in communion I pray that each of us remember that Christ came to us to bring us truth and in accepting the wine and the bread, we take the challenge to continue to learn about “truth” and to turn that truth into action. The church has more power in our world than what we may think! Let us be working at using this power for the true meaning of what God intends for all of life. Instead of us praying with the mindset of “God be on our side”, let us pray with the mind set, “God let us be on your side”, for it is only with that attitude that we can accept the “light” that came to us in the body of Jesus, the Christ and to share the greatness of God’s love. Amen
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
Jeremiah 31:7-14; Ephesians 1:3-14; John 1: 1-18
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 1/3/10
Today is the second Sunday of Christmas (please note I say “of” and not “after”), as those who are more in tune with the Christian Calendar understand that we celebrate 12 days of Christmas. Next week we start the season of Epiphany and by the second week in February we begin the season of Lent with the observance of Ash Wednesday. For those who like to follow any of the afternoon Soap Operas, I should think that this time of the year can be quit confusing and possibly frustrating. For in the Soaps, you could miss watching for 5 months and when you tune back in, the plot has only unfolded a mere hour. Since I was last with you, on Christmas Eve, celebrating the birth of Jesus, in a matter of 3 days, Jesus went from being an infant to a preconscious pre-teen of twelve, and next Sunday as we celebrate the first Sunday of Epiphany, we once again go back to the infancy of Jesus with the visit of the three wise men.
Yet isn’t that really a reflection on life itself? Many times whatever we are doing today in way of tasks, we must take time out to revisit and address something that has happened previously; say last week or a month ago, or even a year ago or even further back in time. It is a simple fact that what we are doing today has its presence because of what we did yesterday or the day before, or the week before that and even on decisions and actions that we took decades ago.
When you look at the placement of the stories and books within what we call the Bible, their placements are reflective of the understanding that something has happened before the current story. The name of the first book in the Hebrew Bible, Genesis depicts “the beginning” or “the start of”; even the first story tells of the beginning of life on this planet. The Christian Bible starts off with 4 books (called the Gospels) speaking about the person that we look to as the founder of our faith and then is followed by the Epistles which speaks to the spreading of the Christian faith and the teachings by which the early church started to incorporate as standards in which to live by.
Two of the Gospels, Matthew and Luke start their stories off with the birth of Jesus. For Matthew, the beginning comes with the explanation of Jesus’ human lineage, tracing it back to Ruth and Boaz. For Luke, we start with the lives of Mary and Joseph. In the Gospel of Mark, the author begins with Jesus’ ministry and ends with his crucifixion (somewhere down the road, someone added the story of the resurrection.) With the Gospel of John, which is where a portion of today’s readings come from, the writer speaks to the beginning of Jesus not through family lineage but rather beyond time itself, the beginning being with God and of God and in God. Hear these words once again:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”
As we read this first segment of scripture, our understand of what it is saying will be influenced by what we have been taught from the pulpit in the past as well as what we may have learned in other settings within the church system such as: Sunday school, youth groups and bible studies, or through teachers found on the religious radio and television stations. Our understanding of the meaning of this text will also be influenced by what we have experienced outside of the church’s teachings, such as social structures, ones level of educational background, the economic level of one’s back ground (meaning growing up poor, lower-middle class, middle-middle class, upper-middle class, or just plain rich), the ethnic and cultural background (meaning African-American, Northern European, Irish, Middle-eastern, Native American and Asian to mention just a few) as well as geographical background (the deep south, New England states, Mid-west, Southwest, Pacific Northwest, Northern Plaines states or the Rocky Mountain region); all of this plays into our understanding, our interpretation of not just this scripture but all scripture.
I hope that for everyone here this morning, you have had the marvelous experience of realizing that each time you read scripture it is saying something new to you. The reason for this is because of what has happened within your life between the last time you read that passage to the present reading of that passage. From time to time I like to go back to some of my old sermons and see what I found of interest in that reading as compared to what I am focusing in on currently. It is the stillspeaking God when we find something new in scripture!
Since I was on Holiday this past week and feeling a time crunch to make sure I had a sermon for today, I looked at the sermon that corresponds to today’s lectionary reading. It was on Jan 5, 1986, fresh out of Seminary that I first struggled with today’s lectionary texts. I discovered that I worked on the Ephesians text and not on John’s. Today, however, I found John as the text that most interested me. More specifically about the meaning of the use “word” and “light”. Are these two words meaning the same thing or are there just the obvious differences?
As I mentioned just a few minutes ago, the 4 Gospels had their way of explaining and justifying to their original audience that Jesus was the Messiah that they were waiting for. With John, he was explaining Jesus’ authority as not being based on an earthly kingdom but rather of a Heavenly Kingdom as he uses the imagery of Jesus being with God as well as apart of God. John definitely refers to Jesus as being the “Word” and that the “word” is what gave life. We have to recall the original creation stories as it was God, who with a “word” created all life as we understand as well as what we have yet to understand. It was God, breathing “life” into creation that gave it activity. So from Johns argument, Jesus’ authority comes not from his lineage, but rather because he was with God and of God before earth came into existence. It is from this reality that Jesus is able to provide life for all of creation through his death, because Jesus was a part of creation to begin with.
John moves from establishing Jesus as the life giver to also defending the idea that Jesus was not overcome by evil, but rather that Jesus gave up his life willingly in the phrase, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” The idea here of course is that God cannot be overcome by evil. This is where the inner play of the words “light” and “darkness” start to come into play. The idea of darkness is the opposite of the idea of light. Darkness is used to describe evil and light is used to describe good. Remember that in the creation stories, God pronounced all that was created as “good”. The concept of darkness didn’t occur until Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden tends to convey the idea of living in harmony with God and that by not living in the garden is living life away from God or living life in darkness.
As John develops his understanding of Jesus, he uses this phrase, “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” So the “word” which was Jesus, became life, from life came “the light” for all people; hence my fascination with the word “light”. What does “light” ultimately mean? If we were in seminary and I was your professor, I could spend over a month, chewing on this word and its meaning. However, I am going to give you a conclusion without the pain of arriving there yourselves. The word “light”, to my current understanding comes to mean, “Truth”. The life that Jesus has brought to us is “Truth” toward understanding God. If we understand God, we then will have the desire to act in the manor that God acts, or at least that is the underlying hope we have as Christians.
John finishes this section of his treaty with this statement: The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” John is letting us know that by way of Jesus, humanity no longer has to experience God through the law, but rather we know God because of grace and truth. As we go through out the rest of the church year we will be learning the concepts of “grace and truth.” Through Jesus’ life we are also able to see that the church is not stagnate, but evolving and growing. Once we were under the law, something that was condemning, but through Christ, we live under grace, the active process of redemption of forgiving and of growth; an ever speaking God, not one who has nothing more to reveal.
This redemption is best expressed in Ephesians, where Paul writes: In Jesus you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in Jesus, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people…” There is a process, a flow to what is being said here: first we hear, and then we believe what we have heard and through that believe we receive the fruit of what we believe.
This week while on Holiday, along with the opportunity to visit with many of my friends in Seattle, I took time to read and start preparing myself for upcoming conversations that I will be participating in with the Union Church in Green River as they begin to start learning about the topic of Homosexuality. The book that I was reading was recommended to me by their pastor, Curtis Tutterrow as one of the books that is a springboard for their discussions. I also had the opportunity to watch one of the Box Office hit movies, Avatar, which deals with the theme of one group of people feeling empowerment over creatures that they deemed less valuable, thereby able to justify their destructive behavior toward these lesser creatures.
These may sound like two unrelated subjects but actually they are very much related. What struck me from the book that I just finished titled, Crisis, 40 stories revealing the personal, social and religious pain and trauma of growing up gay in America edited by Mitchell Gold and the movie Avatar, which brought back to memory a film released back in 1985, titled, The Mission, which depicted the decimation of a complete culture in South America as the price to keep peace between Spain and Portugal by the Roman Catholic Church as these two countries were vying for ownership of land in South America, is just how powerful the church has been in our culture and continues to be. We are the voice the “light” that John writes about. We are the voice that is charged to bring “truth” to the larger community. Yet, so many times the church has acted in “darkness” and not as “the light” of the world as it used Gods word to promote slavery, laws against inter-racial marriage, hatred toward the Jews (especially in Nazi Germany), the dehumanization of America’s Native Indians and continues the hatred toward non-heterosexuals. I don’t think it is generally done out of malicious acts but rather more times than not, it has come out of ignorance and a non-willingness to look at truth, when it challenges our own person biases.
As we come to the Christ table today and take part in communion I pray that each of us remember that Christ came to us to bring us truth and in accepting the wine and the bread, we take the challenge to continue to learn about “truth” and to turn that truth into action. The church has more power in our world than what we may think! Let us be working at using this power for the true meaning of what God intends for all of life. Instead of us praying with the mindset of “God be on our side”, let us pray with the mind set, “God let us be on your side”, for it is only with that attitude that we can accept the “light” that came to us in the body of Jesus, the Christ and to share the greatness of God’s love. Amen
4th Sunday of Advent, 1st Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY
Moving Toward the Future
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
Micah 5:2-5a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-55
4th Sunday of Advent, Rock Springs, WY 12/20/09
As I was preparing for today’s reflection on our Lectionary texts I discovered some marvelous thoughts from the United Church of Christ’s website. So today, I would like to share with you some of the perspectives that I was blessed to read.
“We’ve just heard three weeks of preaching from Jesus and John the Baptist, those prophets out of the wilderness, about world-shaking events, part judgment, part exhortation to get our lives turned around in preparation for what is to come. In this week’s unique situation, we have, in a sense, four unlikely prophets gathered not in the wilderness but on the front step of Elizabeth’s home, two of them not even born yet, and still John (the unborn child Elizabeth is carrying) is already able to acknowledge the One who is greater. The other two prophets are women, women with names and stories, women with voices and something to say, or in Mary’s case, something to sing. Women and babies: we’re definitely not at “the top of the heap,” here, especially not when there’s an actual priest in the house, Zechariah, a professional, licensed and learned, knows-what-he’s-doing expert in matters of faith. [Just a short background, Zechariah is the husband of Elizabeth. As he was in the temple doing his priestly duties, he was visited by the angel Gabriel and was told that he and Elizabeth were going to have a child and he was to name this child John. Because of his and Elizabeth’s advanced age, he questioned Gabriel about their ability to have children. Because of his disbelieve, he was not able to speak until the time of John’s birth.] Ironically, though, Zechariah is the very one in this scene without a voice, literally, since he’s been struck speechless during his own angelic visit. The stage is set this week, then, for us to have the rare opportunity to hear from the women and children for a change. And what a change they dream of!
A recent book by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas, provides an excellent lens through which we might read the familiar and beloved Nativity stories. Matthew and Luke each provide what the authors call an “overture” to their Gospel in which important themes in that Gospel are first heard. Borg and Crossan describe each evangelist’s “overture as microcosm to his gospel as macrocosm.” In Luke’s story, his Gospel’s emphasis on women, the marginalized, and the Holy Spirit are all evident in the birth narratives, including the one we read this week. In this short passage, the prophetic words of these two women, filled with the Holy Spirit, give voice to those who are lowly, like the shepherds to whom the angels later announce the birth of Jesus.
In his book, The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey, Henri Nouwen provides a thoughtful reflection on the encounter between Elizabeth and Mary. His meditation is worthy of the best feminist theology, which draws our attention to the easily missed things that are happening to and with the “little ones” in our Scripture texts. It may be true that the mighty are brought down, and the great promises of old are kept, but in the meantime, on the dusty road, on a well-swept doorstep, two women meet to share the ancient, womanly experience of being with child.
Advent is indeed a time of waiting, a time pregnant with hope. On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, Mary and Elizabeth could be seen as two ordinary, pregnant women in the most extraordinary time and circumstances, on the brink of greatness but first tending to their relationship with each other and with God. Motherhood is daunting to every woman, especially the first time around, and these two women have found themselves pregnant under most unusual and unexpected terms, one past the age to conceive, and the other a virgin. So, like women in every place and time, they spend time together, keeping each other company, learning and praying and perhaps laughing together, as they face first-time childbirth and motherhood.
The new life promised in Mary’s pregnancy, of course, is the focus of Luke’s story, as it fulfills promises to all humankind, but one wonders how these two humble women must have felt about what was happening in their own lives. Nouwen says, “Who could ever understand? Who could ever believe it? Who could ever let it happen? But Mary says, ‘Let it happen to me’, and she immediately realizes that only Elizabeth will be able to affirm her ‘yes’. For three months Mary and Elizabeth live together and encourage each other to truly accept the motherhood given to them.” As Nouwen reads this story, neither woman had to wait alone for the extraordinary events to unfold, slowly, as pregnancies do: “They could wait together and thus deepen in each other their faith in God, for whom nothing is impossible. Thus, God’s most radical intervention into history was listened to and received in community.”
In this Advent season, we in the church are keenly aware that we wait in community for the promises of God to unfold in our lives. Here, in community, we hold each other up when one of us needs encouragement or support. We help one another search for meaning, rejoice with one another, walk alongside each other. Just as Elizabeth must have listened to Mary, and helped her prepare for what was to come (at least, as much as such a marvelous thing might be prepared for), we help one another work things out. Sometimes, we just sit in the dark quiet and wait together, trusting in the promises of God, listening for a word from the Stillspeaking God. “In a way,” Timothy Mulder writes, “here is a preface for Emmanuel. We humans are not meant to go through the tough or the wonderful alone. Both need to be shared” (New Proclamation 2009) And in the midst of our waiting, as Paul, writing from prison, encouraged the Philippians; as Hannah and Mary sang God’s praise;[let me interject that Hannah was a woman who prayed to God to give her a son, whom we know as Samuel, she then gave his life back to God, recognizing that the only reason why she had Samuel was because of God’s favor; and out of this recognition sang a song of praise, from which much of Mary’s song comes. So in reality, Mary’s song was quoting from Hannah.] and as Elizabeth welcomed her beloved cousin and companion, Paul says: we rejoice, our hearts dancing within us.” That is the way that we move with Mary’s song.
I want to stop for a moment and reflect on this last paragraph. Look around you, see who is here in Worship this morning. Now, look around again and think about those who are not in Worship this morning. How many people can you think of who are members and friends of the church and were regularly attending worship 2 yrs ago, 3 yrs ago, maybe 4 yrs ago and are not here today?
When I was interviewed by the Transitional Ministers committee, one of the things that we discussed was “how to get those people back” or “should we even try? Possibly moving forward and not worry about them as it had been suggested by denominational leadership.” What I’m about to speak to, I say with the deepest love and concern for every person who is associated with this body of faith; to those who are here and to those who are painfully missing. One of the processes in healing, is to recognize when there has been an injury. One of the realities that we as a congregation need to face up to is that there have been many people who have been severely hurt by behavior that took place over the last few years. Many of those faces that you do not see here this morning are casualties and many of you who are here this morning are also still trying to heal.
As a transitional minister, one of my jobs is to help you as a faith community heal from the experience that you have come through. One of those ways is to listen; listen to the pain that is held within one’s heart especially after it’s been deeply wounded. Yet many times, my listening cannot provide the real healing ointment that needs to be applied to help that person let go of the hurt and anger and move forward with their spiritual life. One of the 12 steps in the work of AA in order to heal is to address the “wrongs” that one has done to others and seek forgiveness for those actions. That type of work has to be done one on one and by those whom it involves, it isn’t something that “a third party” such as a pastor can effectively do.
As I read just a couple of minutes ago: we in the church are keenly aware that we wait in community for the promises of God to unfold in our lives. Here, in community, we hold each other up when one of us needs encouragement or support. We help one another search for meaning, rejoice with one another, walk alongside each other. We humans are not meant to go through the tough or the wonderful alone. And as a congregation we need to do the same for those who are not here and hurting. The only real way for us as a congregation to heal is to examine our hearts and if we need to go to those who are not here and talk with them, to open the doors of communication in order to allow healing to start, then I pray that this work can start with this Advent season.
For one of lessons that we can hear when Elizabeth is praising Mary at her door step is that of Mary’s accepting the word spoken to her from God. The key point is “accepting” when the word of God comes to you! That is where and when the blessing and the joy starts to fill your heart. Mary’s song came not just from hearing God’s word, but by accepting God’s word, even when it meant that she would possibly be ridiculed, not only by her family or Joseph, but by the community, a community that had a law that, if imposed, could lead to her death by stoning for having sex outside of marriage. Is it an easy task to humble oneself to what God teaches and wishes to occur in our lives? No, it’s probably the hardest job anyone of us has; the job of letting go one’s ego! But it is the only way to prepare the way for God’s joy that is waiting to expand within our hearts.
We are knit together in a community of faith. When we are missing some of our family, we have a huge hole within our fabric. We are missing the blessings that they can bring into our midst. We are missing opportunities of growth when we just let them slip away. But more importantly, we are guilty of damaging a spirit that God has placed within our midst for support, encouragement, and to experience the good times in life together as well as the tough times.
From time to time people send me poems and cartoons and other items of interest by way of e-mail. As I close today’s lesson, I would like to share with you one of these e-mails that Liz Strannigan shared with me, which re-tells today’s reading of Mary’s Song; it is titled The Christmas Pageant.
My husband and I had been (most of the time) happily married for five years but hadn't been blessed with a baby.
I decided to do some serious praying. I promised God that if he would give us a child, I would be a perfect mother, love it with all my heart and raise it with His word as my guide.
God answered my prayers and blessed us with a son.
The next year he blessed us with another son.
The following year, He blessed us with yet another son.
The year after that we were blessed with a daughter.
My husband thought we'd been blessed right into poverty. We now had four children, and the oldest was only four years old.
I learned never to ask God for anything unless I meant it. As a minister once told me, "If you pray for rain, make sure you carry an umbrella."
I began reading a few verses of the Bible to the children each day as they lay in their cribs. I was off to a good start. God had entrusted me with four children and I didn't want to disappoint Him.
I tried to be patient the day the children smashed two dozen eggs on the kitchen floor searching for baby chicks.
I tried to be understanding... when they started a hotel for homeless frogs in the spare bedroom, although it took me nearly two hours to catch all twenty-three frogs.
When my daughter poured ketchup all over herself and rolled up in a blanket to see how it felt to be a hot dog, I tried to see the humor rather than the mess.
In spite of changing over twenty-five thousand diapers, never eating a hot meal, and never sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time, I still thank God daily for my children.
While I couldn't keep my promise to be a perfect mother--I didn't even come close--I did keep my promise to raise them in the Word of God.
I knew I was missing the mark just a little when I told my daughter we were going to church to "worship" God, and she wanted to bring a bar of soap along to "wash up" Jesus, too.
Something was lost in the translation when I explained that God gave us everlasting life, and my son thought it was generous of God to give us his "last wife."
But my proudest moment came during the children's Christmas pageant:
My daughter was playing Mary, two of my sons were shepherds, and my youngest son was a wise man. This was their moment to shine.
My five-year-old shepherd had practiced his line, "We found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes." But he was nervous and said, "The baby was wrapped in wrinkled clothes."
My four-year-old "Mary" said, "That's not 'wrinkled clothes,' silly. That's dirty, rotten clothes."
A wrestling match broke out between Mary and the shepherd and was stopped by an angel, who bent her halo and lost her left wing.
I slouched a little lower in my seat when Mary dropped the doll representing Baby Jesus, and it bounced down the aisle crying, "Mama-mama."
Mary grabbed the doll, wrapped it back up and held it tightly as the wise men arrived.
My other son stepped forward wearing a bathrobe and a paper crown, knelt at the manger and announced, "We are the three wise men and we are bringing gifts of gold, common sense and fur."
The congregation dissolved into laughter, and the pageant got a standing ovation.
"I've never enjoyed a Christmas program as much as this one," laughed the pastor, wiping tears from his eyes.
"For the rest of my life, I'll never hear the Christmas story without thinking of gold, common sense and fur."
"My children are my pride, my joy, and my greatest blessing," I said as I dug through my purse for an aspirin.
Jesus had no servants, yet they called Him Master.
Had no degree, yet they called Him Teacher.
Had no medicines, yet they called Him Healer.
Had no army, yet kings feared Him.
He won no military battles, yet He conquered the world.
He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him.
He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today.
Feel honored to serve such a Leader who loves us.
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
Micah 5:2-5a; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-55
4th Sunday of Advent, Rock Springs, WY 12/20/09
As I was preparing for today’s reflection on our Lectionary texts I discovered some marvelous thoughts from the United Church of Christ’s website. So today, I would like to share with you some of the perspectives that I was blessed to read.
“We’ve just heard three weeks of preaching from Jesus and John the Baptist, those prophets out of the wilderness, about world-shaking events, part judgment, part exhortation to get our lives turned around in preparation for what is to come. In this week’s unique situation, we have, in a sense, four unlikely prophets gathered not in the wilderness but on the front step of Elizabeth’s home, two of them not even born yet, and still John (the unborn child Elizabeth is carrying) is already able to acknowledge the One who is greater. The other two prophets are women, women with names and stories, women with voices and something to say, or in Mary’s case, something to sing. Women and babies: we’re definitely not at “the top of the heap,” here, especially not when there’s an actual priest in the house, Zechariah, a professional, licensed and learned, knows-what-he’s-doing expert in matters of faith. [Just a short background, Zechariah is the husband of Elizabeth. As he was in the temple doing his priestly duties, he was visited by the angel Gabriel and was told that he and Elizabeth were going to have a child and he was to name this child John. Because of his and Elizabeth’s advanced age, he questioned Gabriel about their ability to have children. Because of his disbelieve, he was not able to speak until the time of John’s birth.] Ironically, though, Zechariah is the very one in this scene without a voice, literally, since he’s been struck speechless during his own angelic visit. The stage is set this week, then, for us to have the rare opportunity to hear from the women and children for a change. And what a change they dream of!
A recent book by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas, provides an excellent lens through which we might read the familiar and beloved Nativity stories. Matthew and Luke each provide what the authors call an “overture” to their Gospel in which important themes in that Gospel are first heard. Borg and Crossan describe each evangelist’s “overture as microcosm to his gospel as macrocosm.” In Luke’s story, his Gospel’s emphasis on women, the marginalized, and the Holy Spirit are all evident in the birth narratives, including the one we read this week. In this short passage, the prophetic words of these two women, filled with the Holy Spirit, give voice to those who are lowly, like the shepherds to whom the angels later announce the birth of Jesus.
In his book, The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey, Henri Nouwen provides a thoughtful reflection on the encounter between Elizabeth and Mary. His meditation is worthy of the best feminist theology, which draws our attention to the easily missed things that are happening to and with the “little ones” in our Scripture texts. It may be true that the mighty are brought down, and the great promises of old are kept, but in the meantime, on the dusty road, on a well-swept doorstep, two women meet to share the ancient, womanly experience of being with child.
Advent is indeed a time of waiting, a time pregnant with hope. On this Fourth Sunday of Advent, Mary and Elizabeth could be seen as two ordinary, pregnant women in the most extraordinary time and circumstances, on the brink of greatness but first tending to their relationship with each other and with God. Motherhood is daunting to every woman, especially the first time around, and these two women have found themselves pregnant under most unusual and unexpected terms, one past the age to conceive, and the other a virgin. So, like women in every place and time, they spend time together, keeping each other company, learning and praying and perhaps laughing together, as they face first-time childbirth and motherhood.
The new life promised in Mary’s pregnancy, of course, is the focus of Luke’s story, as it fulfills promises to all humankind, but one wonders how these two humble women must have felt about what was happening in their own lives. Nouwen says, “Who could ever understand? Who could ever believe it? Who could ever let it happen? But Mary says, ‘Let it happen to me’, and she immediately realizes that only Elizabeth will be able to affirm her ‘yes’. For three months Mary and Elizabeth live together and encourage each other to truly accept the motherhood given to them.” As Nouwen reads this story, neither woman had to wait alone for the extraordinary events to unfold, slowly, as pregnancies do: “They could wait together and thus deepen in each other their faith in God, for whom nothing is impossible. Thus, God’s most radical intervention into history was listened to and received in community.”
In this Advent season, we in the church are keenly aware that we wait in community for the promises of God to unfold in our lives. Here, in community, we hold each other up when one of us needs encouragement or support. We help one another search for meaning, rejoice with one another, walk alongside each other. Just as Elizabeth must have listened to Mary, and helped her prepare for what was to come (at least, as much as such a marvelous thing might be prepared for), we help one another work things out. Sometimes, we just sit in the dark quiet and wait together, trusting in the promises of God, listening for a word from the Stillspeaking God. “In a way,” Timothy Mulder writes, “here is a preface for Emmanuel. We humans are not meant to go through the tough or the wonderful alone. Both need to be shared” (New Proclamation 2009) And in the midst of our waiting, as Paul, writing from prison, encouraged the Philippians; as Hannah and Mary sang God’s praise;[let me interject that Hannah was a woman who prayed to God to give her a son, whom we know as Samuel, she then gave his life back to God, recognizing that the only reason why she had Samuel was because of God’s favor; and out of this recognition sang a song of praise, from which much of Mary’s song comes. So in reality, Mary’s song was quoting from Hannah.] and as Elizabeth welcomed her beloved cousin and companion, Paul says: we rejoice, our hearts dancing within us.” That is the way that we move with Mary’s song.
I want to stop for a moment and reflect on this last paragraph. Look around you, see who is here in Worship this morning. Now, look around again and think about those who are not in Worship this morning. How many people can you think of who are members and friends of the church and were regularly attending worship 2 yrs ago, 3 yrs ago, maybe 4 yrs ago and are not here today?
When I was interviewed by the Transitional Ministers committee, one of the things that we discussed was “how to get those people back” or “should we even try? Possibly moving forward and not worry about them as it had been suggested by denominational leadership.” What I’m about to speak to, I say with the deepest love and concern for every person who is associated with this body of faith; to those who are here and to those who are painfully missing. One of the processes in healing, is to recognize when there has been an injury. One of the realities that we as a congregation need to face up to is that there have been many people who have been severely hurt by behavior that took place over the last few years. Many of those faces that you do not see here this morning are casualties and many of you who are here this morning are also still trying to heal.
As a transitional minister, one of my jobs is to help you as a faith community heal from the experience that you have come through. One of those ways is to listen; listen to the pain that is held within one’s heart especially after it’s been deeply wounded. Yet many times, my listening cannot provide the real healing ointment that needs to be applied to help that person let go of the hurt and anger and move forward with their spiritual life. One of the 12 steps in the work of AA in order to heal is to address the “wrongs” that one has done to others and seek forgiveness for those actions. That type of work has to be done one on one and by those whom it involves, it isn’t something that “a third party” such as a pastor can effectively do.
As I read just a couple of minutes ago: we in the church are keenly aware that we wait in community for the promises of God to unfold in our lives. Here, in community, we hold each other up when one of us needs encouragement or support. We help one another search for meaning, rejoice with one another, walk alongside each other. We humans are not meant to go through the tough or the wonderful alone. And as a congregation we need to do the same for those who are not here and hurting. The only real way for us as a congregation to heal is to examine our hearts and if we need to go to those who are not here and talk with them, to open the doors of communication in order to allow healing to start, then I pray that this work can start with this Advent season.
For one of lessons that we can hear when Elizabeth is praising Mary at her door step is that of Mary’s accepting the word spoken to her from God. The key point is “accepting” when the word of God comes to you! That is where and when the blessing and the joy starts to fill your heart. Mary’s song came not just from hearing God’s word, but by accepting God’s word, even when it meant that she would possibly be ridiculed, not only by her family or Joseph, but by the community, a community that had a law that, if imposed, could lead to her death by stoning for having sex outside of marriage. Is it an easy task to humble oneself to what God teaches and wishes to occur in our lives? No, it’s probably the hardest job anyone of us has; the job of letting go one’s ego! But it is the only way to prepare the way for God’s joy that is waiting to expand within our hearts.
We are knit together in a community of faith. When we are missing some of our family, we have a huge hole within our fabric. We are missing the blessings that they can bring into our midst. We are missing opportunities of growth when we just let them slip away. But more importantly, we are guilty of damaging a spirit that God has placed within our midst for support, encouragement, and to experience the good times in life together as well as the tough times.
From time to time people send me poems and cartoons and other items of interest by way of e-mail. As I close today’s lesson, I would like to share with you one of these e-mails that Liz Strannigan shared with me, which re-tells today’s reading of Mary’s Song; it is titled The Christmas Pageant.
My husband and I had been (most of the time) happily married for five years but hadn't been blessed with a baby.
I decided to do some serious praying. I promised God that if he would give us a child, I would be a perfect mother, love it with all my heart and raise it with His word as my guide.
God answered my prayers and blessed us with a son.
The next year he blessed us with another son.
The following year, He blessed us with yet another son.
The year after that we were blessed with a daughter.
My husband thought we'd been blessed right into poverty. We now had four children, and the oldest was only four years old.
I learned never to ask God for anything unless I meant it. As a minister once told me, "If you pray for rain, make sure you carry an umbrella."
I began reading a few verses of the Bible to the children each day as they lay in their cribs. I was off to a good start. God had entrusted me with four children and I didn't want to disappoint Him.
I tried to be patient the day the children smashed two dozen eggs on the kitchen floor searching for baby chicks.
I tried to be understanding... when they started a hotel for homeless frogs in the spare bedroom, although it took me nearly two hours to catch all twenty-three frogs.
When my daughter poured ketchup all over herself and rolled up in a blanket to see how it felt to be a hot dog, I tried to see the humor rather than the mess.
In spite of changing over twenty-five thousand diapers, never eating a hot meal, and never sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time, I still thank God daily for my children.
While I couldn't keep my promise to be a perfect mother--I didn't even come close--I did keep my promise to raise them in the Word of God.
I knew I was missing the mark just a little when I told my daughter we were going to church to "worship" God, and she wanted to bring a bar of soap along to "wash up" Jesus, too.
Something was lost in the translation when I explained that God gave us everlasting life, and my son thought it was generous of God to give us his "last wife."
But my proudest moment came during the children's Christmas pageant:
My daughter was playing Mary, two of my sons were shepherds, and my youngest son was a wise man. This was their moment to shine.
My five-year-old shepherd had practiced his line, "We found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes." But he was nervous and said, "The baby was wrapped in wrinkled clothes."
My four-year-old "Mary" said, "That's not 'wrinkled clothes,' silly. That's dirty, rotten clothes."
A wrestling match broke out between Mary and the shepherd and was stopped by an angel, who bent her halo and lost her left wing.
I slouched a little lower in my seat when Mary dropped the doll representing Baby Jesus, and it bounced down the aisle crying, "Mama-mama."
Mary grabbed the doll, wrapped it back up and held it tightly as the wise men arrived.
My other son stepped forward wearing a bathrobe and a paper crown, knelt at the manger and announced, "We are the three wise men and we are bringing gifts of gold, common sense and fur."
The congregation dissolved into laughter, and the pageant got a standing ovation.
"I've never enjoyed a Christmas program as much as this one," laughed the pastor, wiping tears from his eyes.
"For the rest of my life, I'll never hear the Christmas story without thinking of gold, common sense and fur."
"My children are my pride, my joy, and my greatest blessing," I said as I dug through my purse for an aspirin.
Jesus had no servants, yet they called Him Master.
Had no degree, yet they called Him Teacher.
Had no medicines, yet they called Him Healer.
Had no army, yet kings feared Him.
He won no military battles, yet He conquered the world.
He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him.
He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today.
Feel honored to serve such a Leader who loves us.
Monday, December 14, 2009
3rd Sunday of Advent, First Cong.UCC, Rock Springs, WY
What Is Salvation?
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
3rd Sunday of Advent
First Cong UCC, Rock Springs, WY 12/13/09
Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18
This past Tuesday was one of those rare occasions where my whole day literally spanned the whole spectrum of what a minister does. My first meeting was with a group of colleagues, a meeting designed to give support to one another as professionals; my next meeting was with a couple wanting to get married; then I met with a family who had lost their family member with a sudden death and we discussed what the memorial service would entail as well as doing some grief counseling; my last meeting of the day centered around the excitement of a baptism.
In general, most of those meetings were dealing with exciting and joyous events within one’s life. But there was also the reminder that life is not always exciting and fun, but at times filled with pain, loss, grief and feelings of aloneness. Even though these people’s lives ran the full range of life’s experiences, the one basic theme that connected all four meetings centered on the “spiritual” needs of each person I visited with that day.
Today we are in the third week of Advent, a time that we focus on preparation and of anticipation of the coming of Christ. The first Sunday of Advent tended to focus on the return of Christ, and depending on whether your belief structure lends itself to a physical return of Jesus or if your belief system leads you to think in terms of a more metaphorical meaning of “His second coming”, we spent that Sunday taking a look at what that might mean to us. Last week we started to focus on preparation of our Spirit with the coming of Christ. This week we continue more fully on the discussion of ‘where’ we are at in our Spiritual journey.
In recent weeks I have begun to develop a working relationship with the local funeral homes. Vase in particular is starting to ask me to help with services for families that do not have an active relationship with any of the local churches and the reason comes not just from my skill and sensitivity but because of my believe of what is and isn’t appropriate conduct at a memorial service; and this code of conduct comes from my theological understanding; or through my interpretation of what Jesus was teaching during his life.
The short version of my theology is that going to church does not speak to “Ones Salvation”. If you haven’t already figured it out from previous sermons, I do not believe that going to Worship services means you are or are not a religious person. I grew up hearing every Sunday morning, “Steven, just because you go to church doesn’t mean you have any more faith than the person who doesn’t go.” And that is so very, very true. Now I have very definite reason’s on why “we should come to Worship” on a regular basis, but it has nothing to do with whether I am a good person verses being a bad person, or whether my faith in God is stronger because I attend church over the person who doesn’t attend church. For far too many centuries the Christian community has been presenting the idea of “what salvation” is in nothing more than a “Fire Insurance Policy”.
One of Jesus’ starting assumptions, as I understand his teachings, is that every person is a spiritual being. As a spiritual being, we have a natural desire to connect with others on a spiritual level. So what does that mean? Well, that is where the issue of language and the short coming of language can come into play. For when we deal with language we tend to deal on the level of “intellectualism” and that isn’t where “Spirituality” lives. Spirituality lives in the home of “feelings”, or another way of saying it, spirituality lives in the heart. When we deal with our spiritual nature we do not want to use the “I think” type of language, but rather we would use “I feel” type of phrases as a way of expressing what we wish to convey. This in itself becomes very scary for those of us who do not like to dwell in the world of “feelings” as this opens us to being vulnerable, which for the most part we are taught from an early age, to be on guard so that we are not injured emotionally. Men more so than women have a more difficult time in expressing emotions; men are suppose to be the warriors, the protectors and so at an early age they are taught to put their “feelings” safely into a box somewhere deep within us as part of the process to being strong. Jesus would say “Hog wash” to this type of training of our young people! For it is in our heart that we find our “humanity”.
So, how do I then as a minister, approach a family who does not have religious ties, in their time of deep grief over the loss of their family member? How do I approach developing a service when the family tells me that the deceased was not a religious person and they too are not particularly interested in dealing with a “religiously” based service? For one of the purposes of a funeral is to provide comfort for the survivors in knowing that the person who has died, spirit, will live on in peace. One of the basic Christian premises is that of life after death, and that one’s spirit will either exist in peace, which we call Heaven or will not exist in peace but rather eternal torment, which we have labeled “hell.”
I suppose when we ask that question, what we are really asking is, “How as a religious leader, do you stay true to this premise?” As I mentioned earlier, it is based on how you understand the teachings of Jesus. If your understanding of “Salvation” is based on some grouping of words that basically boil down to something like this: “I believe in Jesus Christ as my personal savior and that he is the son of God and I believe that through his death and resurrection I will have life everlasting only if I believe in his saving grace.” Then as a minister, you might have a very difficult time in dealing with a funeral of a non-religious person.
Being a staunch believer in the teachings of Jesus, I find that I can approach these families with deep compassion and love because they are a part of the family of God. When I visit with a family in their time of grieving from the death of their beloved family member, I speak to them in terms of not a funeral or even a memorial service, but rather as a time where we will “celebrate” this loved ones life. The reason I call it a celebration is, because as children of God, we as “spiritual” beings, experience the love of God on a variety of levels. What I hear when I am told that someone isn’t a religious person doesn’t mean that they are not devoid of this spiritual relationship, nor doesn’t mean that that individual hasn’t developed a strong spiritual believe system. It doesn’t mean that the person how has died, hasn’t experienced “salvation.” What it is telling me is that they did not engage, at the level church goers would recognize, as having a practicing religious belief system.
When someone tells me that they are “spiritual” but not religious, what I am hearing is not something lacking in this persons spiritual development, but rather an indictment toward the church. It means that the church has failed to speak in a language of that individual; a language that would encourage that person to come and feel a part of a faith community. For those of us who were raised in the church, we understand the language, we love the hymns that we sing, the prayers that we pray; but for someone who has not grown up in the church or was raised in the church but left; our language is foreign to them, and our hymns make no emotional connections either rhythmically or with their words. In other words, the way in which we conduct a Worship Service generally doesn’t connect or engage people who have little to no church memory. It’s not that people do not turn away from the church, but rather, it is the church that is not reaching out to those not here and communicate in a way that they hear what we wish to share with them.
In today’s Gospel, we read where John is accusing those who were coming out to be baptized of being vipers! Eugene Peterson puts it this way, “You brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snake skins is going to deflect God’s judgment? It’s your life that must change, not your skin. And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as ‘father’. Being a child of Abraham is neither here nor there. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.”
The reader’s digest of what John is say is this. It’s not the words that we speak that is where our salvation comes from. We are not saved by calling ourselves Christian; we are not saved because we go to church; we are not saved because we have been baptized. John is telling us that we are saved because of what is in our heart! There we go again talking about that place where “feelings” live at! Our salvation doesn’t come from “religious” activities; it comes through “relationships”; relationship with God and relationship with others.
For those of us who only deal with life on the “intellectual” level, I am not sure if we will really understand the concept of “salvation”. The relationship with God is no different that our relationships with those that we love, be it our partner, our children, our friends. These relationships can only exist and deepen with ongoing contact. That is one of the reason’s I give for coming to church. It is in coming together that we build these relationships; it is by coming into community that we foster and deepen our “feelings”, of finding a sacred space where we can open our heart and become vulnerable so we can feel the Holy Spirit within us and among us.
To John, as with Jesus, salvation is experienced by what we do with our lives. It is found in how we enter act with others, not just our friends and families but with strangers. Do we give to those in need, not just in food or in money, but do we give of ourselves? The battle cry of “Social Justice” just isn’t in providing equality or giving voice to those who cannot speak for themselves. Social justice extends to how much of ourselves do we give to those in need. Martin Luther King had it so very right in his vision of equality. For it went far beyond equality of blacks being equal with whites, it is the vision that God has for his children; for we shall find our salvation when we all understand and live in true community, where there is no thought of do you “belong” because of your skin color, or because of your educational level, or because of your family connections, or of your religious beliefs; but because we all understand that every human being is one of God’s children, that we are all truly brothers and sisters and we are all equal in the love of God. This is the massage that Christ came to deliver to us; this is the message that Christ was killed for speaking. This is the message that I want us to hear as we prepare for Christmas: The message is that of Love, of community, of being open to growing into God’s understanding; that we all belong and all are welcomed. Or as this weeks fortune cookie said: Don’t judge a work of Art by it’s flaws!” Amen
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
3rd Sunday of Advent
First Cong UCC, Rock Springs, WY 12/13/09
Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18
This past Tuesday was one of those rare occasions where my whole day literally spanned the whole spectrum of what a minister does. My first meeting was with a group of colleagues, a meeting designed to give support to one another as professionals; my next meeting was with a couple wanting to get married; then I met with a family who had lost their family member with a sudden death and we discussed what the memorial service would entail as well as doing some grief counseling; my last meeting of the day centered around the excitement of a baptism.
In general, most of those meetings were dealing with exciting and joyous events within one’s life. But there was also the reminder that life is not always exciting and fun, but at times filled with pain, loss, grief and feelings of aloneness. Even though these people’s lives ran the full range of life’s experiences, the one basic theme that connected all four meetings centered on the “spiritual” needs of each person I visited with that day.
Today we are in the third week of Advent, a time that we focus on preparation and of anticipation of the coming of Christ. The first Sunday of Advent tended to focus on the return of Christ, and depending on whether your belief structure lends itself to a physical return of Jesus or if your belief system leads you to think in terms of a more metaphorical meaning of “His second coming”, we spent that Sunday taking a look at what that might mean to us. Last week we started to focus on preparation of our Spirit with the coming of Christ. This week we continue more fully on the discussion of ‘where’ we are at in our Spiritual journey.
In recent weeks I have begun to develop a working relationship with the local funeral homes. Vase in particular is starting to ask me to help with services for families that do not have an active relationship with any of the local churches and the reason comes not just from my skill and sensitivity but because of my believe of what is and isn’t appropriate conduct at a memorial service; and this code of conduct comes from my theological understanding; or through my interpretation of what Jesus was teaching during his life.
The short version of my theology is that going to church does not speak to “Ones Salvation”. If you haven’t already figured it out from previous sermons, I do not believe that going to Worship services means you are or are not a religious person. I grew up hearing every Sunday morning, “Steven, just because you go to church doesn’t mean you have any more faith than the person who doesn’t go.” And that is so very, very true. Now I have very definite reason’s on why “we should come to Worship” on a regular basis, but it has nothing to do with whether I am a good person verses being a bad person, or whether my faith in God is stronger because I attend church over the person who doesn’t attend church. For far too many centuries the Christian community has been presenting the idea of “what salvation” is in nothing more than a “Fire Insurance Policy”.
One of Jesus’ starting assumptions, as I understand his teachings, is that every person is a spiritual being. As a spiritual being, we have a natural desire to connect with others on a spiritual level. So what does that mean? Well, that is where the issue of language and the short coming of language can come into play. For when we deal with language we tend to deal on the level of “intellectualism” and that isn’t where “Spirituality” lives. Spirituality lives in the home of “feelings”, or another way of saying it, spirituality lives in the heart. When we deal with our spiritual nature we do not want to use the “I think” type of language, but rather we would use “I feel” type of phrases as a way of expressing what we wish to convey. This in itself becomes very scary for those of us who do not like to dwell in the world of “feelings” as this opens us to being vulnerable, which for the most part we are taught from an early age, to be on guard so that we are not injured emotionally. Men more so than women have a more difficult time in expressing emotions; men are suppose to be the warriors, the protectors and so at an early age they are taught to put their “feelings” safely into a box somewhere deep within us as part of the process to being strong. Jesus would say “Hog wash” to this type of training of our young people! For it is in our heart that we find our “humanity”.
So, how do I then as a minister, approach a family who does not have religious ties, in their time of deep grief over the loss of their family member? How do I approach developing a service when the family tells me that the deceased was not a religious person and they too are not particularly interested in dealing with a “religiously” based service? For one of the purposes of a funeral is to provide comfort for the survivors in knowing that the person who has died, spirit, will live on in peace. One of the basic Christian premises is that of life after death, and that one’s spirit will either exist in peace, which we call Heaven or will not exist in peace but rather eternal torment, which we have labeled “hell.”
I suppose when we ask that question, what we are really asking is, “How as a religious leader, do you stay true to this premise?” As I mentioned earlier, it is based on how you understand the teachings of Jesus. If your understanding of “Salvation” is based on some grouping of words that basically boil down to something like this: “I believe in Jesus Christ as my personal savior and that he is the son of God and I believe that through his death and resurrection I will have life everlasting only if I believe in his saving grace.” Then as a minister, you might have a very difficult time in dealing with a funeral of a non-religious person.
Being a staunch believer in the teachings of Jesus, I find that I can approach these families with deep compassion and love because they are a part of the family of God. When I visit with a family in their time of grieving from the death of their beloved family member, I speak to them in terms of not a funeral or even a memorial service, but rather as a time where we will “celebrate” this loved ones life. The reason I call it a celebration is, because as children of God, we as “spiritual” beings, experience the love of God on a variety of levels. What I hear when I am told that someone isn’t a religious person doesn’t mean that they are not devoid of this spiritual relationship, nor doesn’t mean that that individual hasn’t developed a strong spiritual believe system. It doesn’t mean that the person how has died, hasn’t experienced “salvation.” What it is telling me is that they did not engage, at the level church goers would recognize, as having a practicing religious belief system.
When someone tells me that they are “spiritual” but not religious, what I am hearing is not something lacking in this persons spiritual development, but rather an indictment toward the church. It means that the church has failed to speak in a language of that individual; a language that would encourage that person to come and feel a part of a faith community. For those of us who were raised in the church, we understand the language, we love the hymns that we sing, the prayers that we pray; but for someone who has not grown up in the church or was raised in the church but left; our language is foreign to them, and our hymns make no emotional connections either rhythmically or with their words. In other words, the way in which we conduct a Worship Service generally doesn’t connect or engage people who have little to no church memory. It’s not that people do not turn away from the church, but rather, it is the church that is not reaching out to those not here and communicate in a way that they hear what we wish to share with them.
In today’s Gospel, we read where John is accusing those who were coming out to be baptized of being vipers! Eugene Peterson puts it this way, “You brood of snakes! What do you think you’re doing slithering down here to the river? Do you think a little water on your snake skins is going to deflect God’s judgment? It’s your life that must change, not your skin. And don’t think you can pull rank by claiming Abraham as ‘father’. Being a child of Abraham is neither here nor there. What counts is your life. Is it green and blossoming? Because if it’s deadwood, it goes on the fire.”
The reader’s digest of what John is say is this. It’s not the words that we speak that is where our salvation comes from. We are not saved by calling ourselves Christian; we are not saved because we go to church; we are not saved because we have been baptized. John is telling us that we are saved because of what is in our heart! There we go again talking about that place where “feelings” live at! Our salvation doesn’t come from “religious” activities; it comes through “relationships”; relationship with God and relationship with others.
For those of us who only deal with life on the “intellectual” level, I am not sure if we will really understand the concept of “salvation”. The relationship with God is no different that our relationships with those that we love, be it our partner, our children, our friends. These relationships can only exist and deepen with ongoing contact. That is one of the reason’s I give for coming to church. It is in coming together that we build these relationships; it is by coming into community that we foster and deepen our “feelings”, of finding a sacred space where we can open our heart and become vulnerable so we can feel the Holy Spirit within us and among us.
To John, as with Jesus, salvation is experienced by what we do with our lives. It is found in how we enter act with others, not just our friends and families but with strangers. Do we give to those in need, not just in food or in money, but do we give of ourselves? The battle cry of “Social Justice” just isn’t in providing equality or giving voice to those who cannot speak for themselves. Social justice extends to how much of ourselves do we give to those in need. Martin Luther King had it so very right in his vision of equality. For it went far beyond equality of blacks being equal with whites, it is the vision that God has for his children; for we shall find our salvation when we all understand and live in true community, where there is no thought of do you “belong” because of your skin color, or because of your educational level, or because of your family connections, or of your religious beliefs; but because we all understand that every human being is one of God’s children, that we are all truly brothers and sisters and we are all equal in the love of God. This is the massage that Christ came to deliver to us; this is the message that Christ was killed for speaking. This is the message that I want us to hear as we prepare for Christmas: The message is that of Love, of community, of being open to growing into God’s understanding; that we all belong and all are welcomed. Or as this weeks fortune cookie said: Don’t judge a work of Art by it’s flaws!” Amen
2nd Sunday of Advent, First Cong. UCC, Rock Springs, WY
Responding to God’s Promise
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
2nd Sunday of Advent
Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 3:1-6; Philippians 1:3-11
Today is the Second Sunday of Advent; it is also the Sunday that we celebrate the Eucharist. Once a month we celebrate communion which is not only in remembering the work and sacrifice of the Christ Jesus but it is also a remembering that He will be coming again. It is very fitting that we celebrate communion on the 2nd Sunday of Advent, for it is the 2nd Sunday of Advent that we think in terms of “Preparing”. Advent in itself speaks to a time of preparation for the coming of the Messiah; the celebration of the Eucharist is also a time of preparing for the return of Christ. The celebration of communion makes no sense without this concept of Christ’s return and the season of Advent is lessened without the act of celebration of the Holy Sacrament of Communion.
“…the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, The voice of one crying out in the wilderness; ‘Prepare the way of the lord…’”
As we think about the idea of preparation, I have an idea that most of us think in terms of time lines, especially time lines that we ourselves will personally be able to complete. For example: when a person receives what we recognize as “a call into ministry” there again is a time of preparation before this person starts officially to fulfill the duties of a minister. Within the denomination of the United Church of Christ, one is required to attend and graduate from an accredited seminary; while in seminary, usually you are required to do an internship under the direction of an Ordained Minister; after graduation one has to then write and defend their Theological perspective, demonstrating that they have basic concepts of Christian Theology and that they have sufficiently thought through their own personal beliefs and can defend them; then once you receive a call to serve a congregation, you go through the actual Ordination in which your receive a blessing and official recognition of your call.
In Luke we read where John, who is the son of a priest, Zechariah, and cousin to Jesus, receives a call while he is out in the wilderness. Luke references this call back to Isaiah, which gives us a time frame to which God has been working on the birth of Jesus. From the point of Isaiah calling for Preparation of the coming Messiah to the point of John, there were many generations; it didn’t happen within one persons live time. Even John, wasn’t really sure that the certainty of the Messiah’s coming upon the scene was going to be happening within his life time, which can be witnessed when he while in prison, sent several of his disciples to go and ask Jesus if he was indeed the Messiah.
So, how is this scene that we are reading in Luke actually able to relate to our present day lives since we are reading it as history? Well, there is one idea that pop’s out to me that I think is very relevant to us in our modern times. This point comes in the phrase, “…in the wilderness.” In the book of Lamentations, we read: there is a time for everything under the sun: a time to live and a time to die, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for joy and a time for sorrow, a time to prosper and a time of famine; I think in each one of our lives, our Spiritual life goes through these same types of seasons.
Our Spirituality is just like a field, it begins with very fertile soil, full of all the nutrients that are needed to grow and sustain life. When this soil is cultivated, planted with seeds, watered and cared for, it will automatically produce an abundant harvest. During the growing cycle of this field, not only are there the seeds that we intentionally plant within this fertile soil, life has a way of planting unwanted seeds to grow as well. We call any unwanted seeds, weeds (which doesn’t necessarily make the seeds they come from good or bad, it just means they are unwanted in that place.)
There are times when our field goes through droughts, a period of time when we are missing elements that are needed for our fields to grow and produce the harvest that we are intending. This drought can be a lack of water, or a lack of nutrients. A field after producing its crop, needs to be amended, it needs to have the nutrients that it used for the previous crop replenished so that it has the energy to produce the next crop.
When I graduated from seminary my Spiritual life was like this field that was ready to produce bumper crops. Then through lives events, through my work in the church, through going through a divorce, of losing my family, of needing time to learn who I was as a single person, I found myself spiritually depleted. I needed time to rejuvenate, so I took a sabbatical from parish ministry. After about six years, I was ready to go back into ministry feeling that I was spiritually renewed. Yet, it wasn’t until I found myself back in the class room preparing for my entry into the United Church of Christ and volunteering in a church that loved and accepted me for who I was as a creation of God’s love, that I actually could feel my Spirit coming back to life. It was as if I were watching a dormant tree that had been denied life giving water for a long time, starting to sprout out new shoots. This is what I am speaking about with regard to our Spirituality as being like a field.
The Spirituality of a church is a reflection upon the spiritual health of its members. If the members of any church body are busy in feeding their spiritual lives, then the activities of the church reflect that energy and excitement that comes with an active spiritual life. There are basic nutrients that we need to keep our spirituality thriving. Note I say, thriving, for we will always have our spirituality, but just as a dormant field, we can become spiritually dormant. Studying God’s word is the most single important nutrient that our Spirit needs. Not just studying it in private, but in a group setting, to where you take the word of God and discuss it with others, listening to the understanding of others as they read and study God’s word. This is one of the opportunities that happen every Sunday evening, at 6:30 p.m. during Vespers, we hear the word and then we discuss what we have heard, of how it relates to what is going on in our daily life and giving support to one another. I would invite all of you to come and join in the enriching power that this study group provides and it is Lay lead. It is one of the ways that I am feed spiritually.
As we come to Christ’s table during this advent season, let us open our heart and prepare. As John was crying out in the wilderness, let us examine the wilderness within our heart that needs to prepare for the coming of the Messiah; the one who can truly reign within our hearts; the one who provides peace, justice and love for all of God’s creation, when we allow him to. For in our examination of our heart, we may find that we need to do some personal repenting and opening of our live to God’s call of accepting the forgiveness that is offered to us through Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross. Amen
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
2nd Sunday of Advent
Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 3:1-6; Philippians 1:3-11
Today is the Second Sunday of Advent; it is also the Sunday that we celebrate the Eucharist. Once a month we celebrate communion which is not only in remembering the work and sacrifice of the Christ Jesus but it is also a remembering that He will be coming again. It is very fitting that we celebrate communion on the 2nd Sunday of Advent, for it is the 2nd Sunday of Advent that we think in terms of “Preparing”. Advent in itself speaks to a time of preparation for the coming of the Messiah; the celebration of the Eucharist is also a time of preparing for the return of Christ. The celebration of communion makes no sense without this concept of Christ’s return and the season of Advent is lessened without the act of celebration of the Holy Sacrament of Communion.
“…the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, The voice of one crying out in the wilderness; ‘Prepare the way of the lord…’”
As we think about the idea of preparation, I have an idea that most of us think in terms of time lines, especially time lines that we ourselves will personally be able to complete. For example: when a person receives what we recognize as “a call into ministry” there again is a time of preparation before this person starts officially to fulfill the duties of a minister. Within the denomination of the United Church of Christ, one is required to attend and graduate from an accredited seminary; while in seminary, usually you are required to do an internship under the direction of an Ordained Minister; after graduation one has to then write and defend their Theological perspective, demonstrating that they have basic concepts of Christian Theology and that they have sufficiently thought through their own personal beliefs and can defend them; then once you receive a call to serve a congregation, you go through the actual Ordination in which your receive a blessing and official recognition of your call.
In Luke we read where John, who is the son of a priest, Zechariah, and cousin to Jesus, receives a call while he is out in the wilderness. Luke references this call back to Isaiah, which gives us a time frame to which God has been working on the birth of Jesus. From the point of Isaiah calling for Preparation of the coming Messiah to the point of John, there were many generations; it didn’t happen within one persons live time. Even John, wasn’t really sure that the certainty of the Messiah’s coming upon the scene was going to be happening within his life time, which can be witnessed when he while in prison, sent several of his disciples to go and ask Jesus if he was indeed the Messiah.
So, how is this scene that we are reading in Luke actually able to relate to our present day lives since we are reading it as history? Well, there is one idea that pop’s out to me that I think is very relevant to us in our modern times. This point comes in the phrase, “…in the wilderness.” In the book of Lamentations, we read: there is a time for everything under the sun: a time to live and a time to die, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for joy and a time for sorrow, a time to prosper and a time of famine; I think in each one of our lives, our Spiritual life goes through these same types of seasons.
Our Spirituality is just like a field, it begins with very fertile soil, full of all the nutrients that are needed to grow and sustain life. When this soil is cultivated, planted with seeds, watered and cared for, it will automatically produce an abundant harvest. During the growing cycle of this field, not only are there the seeds that we intentionally plant within this fertile soil, life has a way of planting unwanted seeds to grow as well. We call any unwanted seeds, weeds (which doesn’t necessarily make the seeds they come from good or bad, it just means they are unwanted in that place.)
There are times when our field goes through droughts, a period of time when we are missing elements that are needed for our fields to grow and produce the harvest that we are intending. This drought can be a lack of water, or a lack of nutrients. A field after producing its crop, needs to be amended, it needs to have the nutrients that it used for the previous crop replenished so that it has the energy to produce the next crop.
When I graduated from seminary my Spiritual life was like this field that was ready to produce bumper crops. Then through lives events, through my work in the church, through going through a divorce, of losing my family, of needing time to learn who I was as a single person, I found myself spiritually depleted. I needed time to rejuvenate, so I took a sabbatical from parish ministry. After about six years, I was ready to go back into ministry feeling that I was spiritually renewed. Yet, it wasn’t until I found myself back in the class room preparing for my entry into the United Church of Christ and volunteering in a church that loved and accepted me for who I was as a creation of God’s love, that I actually could feel my Spirit coming back to life. It was as if I were watching a dormant tree that had been denied life giving water for a long time, starting to sprout out new shoots. This is what I am speaking about with regard to our Spirituality as being like a field.
The Spirituality of a church is a reflection upon the spiritual health of its members. If the members of any church body are busy in feeding their spiritual lives, then the activities of the church reflect that energy and excitement that comes with an active spiritual life. There are basic nutrients that we need to keep our spirituality thriving. Note I say, thriving, for we will always have our spirituality, but just as a dormant field, we can become spiritually dormant. Studying God’s word is the most single important nutrient that our Spirit needs. Not just studying it in private, but in a group setting, to where you take the word of God and discuss it with others, listening to the understanding of others as they read and study God’s word. This is one of the opportunities that happen every Sunday evening, at 6:30 p.m. during Vespers, we hear the word and then we discuss what we have heard, of how it relates to what is going on in our daily life and giving support to one another. I would invite all of you to come and join in the enriching power that this study group provides and it is Lay lead. It is one of the ways that I am feed spiritually.
As we come to Christ’s table during this advent season, let us open our heart and prepare. As John was crying out in the wilderness, let us examine the wilderness within our heart that needs to prepare for the coming of the Messiah; the one who can truly reign within our hearts; the one who provides peace, justice and love for all of God’s creation, when we allow him to. For in our examination of our heart, we may find that we need to do some personal repenting and opening of our live to God’s call of accepting the forgiveness that is offered to us through Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross. Amen
1st Sunday of Advent, First Cong. UCC, Rock Springs, WY
Keep the Watch
By Rev Steven R. Mitchell
First Sunday of Advent
Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36
“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.” What apocalyptic language to be given to us on this First Advent Sunday! This idea of apocalyptic discussion seems so different from what I grew up with in terms of what we are “suppose” to be thinking about during Advent.
Last year, I had the opportunity to preach the First Advent Lesson at my home church in Seattle and it was there that I realized, I must have been asleep in class on the day the professor at seminary talked about Advent! For it was during my studying last year’s lectionary readings that I discovered that Advent Lectionary readings were filled with apocalyptic language and imagery.
I had grown up thinking that Advent was solely looking toward the nativity scene, where we get that warm, cuddly feeling of being at the manger with Joseph, Mary and the new born baby Jesus; a scene that speaks of love and joy; of promise and peace. Advent is a season where we listen to Christmas songs (sometimes more than we wish) on the radio; it is a time where we go shopping, being serenaded by MusSac with songs like Frosty the Snowman and Santa Baby.
Advent is the season where we see the winter landscapes become lit up over night with bright colors and outdoor displays of sleighs and reindeer; of angels and Santa Clauses, again giving a sense of warmth and comfort and safety from the frigid temperatures of the winter night. It’s a time where we are to prepare for Christmas Day! Well, you get the picture.
Advent is a season of preparation, but not just of the celebration of Jesus’ birth. Advent becomes a time when we reflect on Jesus’ coming in its many dimensions: his historical coming in his birth, his eschatological coming at the end of time, his existential coming into our own present.(common lectionary yr C) In the Epistle of 1 Thessalonians, we are being exposed by the existential coming of God, where in the Gospel of Luke the language is much more apocalyptic in nature, speaking to the end of all things and the coming of the kingdom of God. Even in the Hebrew text of Jeremiah, we are exposed to the idea of God’s completion of unconditional promises of restoration!(common lectionary yr C)
I would like for us to look just a little more closely to what Paul has written to the Thessalonian church: “Now may our God…and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”
I would like to share an exegesis of this passage as presented in Preaching the New Common Lectionary yr C: “When Paul wrote these words, he had just a few months earlier established the Thessalonian church. As one reads this epistle, it becomes clear that this young, fledgling church still occupies Paul’s thoughts and prayers. He recalls the success of the gospel among them, speaking of them as his “glory and joy”. His anxiety is that of the minister who frets over new converts who have been left behind in a struggling mission church, knowing that their faith is fragile at best.
Here we are at the very center of the Lord’s coming as it is understood existentially: the minister praying for the members of the church – thankful, joyful, triumphant, yet anxious to see them, concerned about their welfare, eager to teach them more and supply what is lacking, hoping that their love for one another will hold them together and that they will be presentable on the Day of the Lord. In another sense as well, this passage illustrates the existential dimension of the Lord’s coming. Here we see faith taking root – and taking shape. The Thessalonians have received the word of God not as a preacher’s oral report, but that which is at work within them as believers.
Paul’s hope is that their love for one another will increase even as his does for them, but their form of community is not to be narcissistic, turning in on itself and its own needs exclusively. Their love is to abound to “the whole human race”. The church that genuinely experiences the coming of Christ into its own midst most fully embodies this presence when it extends its love beyond itself and lives for others. The church thus becomes a reenactment of the Christ story – love for others.”
Today’s Epistle is very near to my heart as it seems to resonate the relationship that we here at First Congregational have with each other. “May our God and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you” This was a pray that I had been praying since October of 2003 after I had completed my Privilege of Call with the United Church of Christ and started to actively look for a congregation in which I could serve. With the receipt of each church profile that was searching for their next settled pastor I would pray that God would direct me to a faith community that He had in mind for me. Over the next four years I was the focus of four very differing search committees, always as one of the finalists being considered. Four times I was looked over as the other finalist was chosen.
My mother has extraordinary faith. She has a very simple believe that God provides and it will be in God’s on time. When I would discuss with her each of the four differing possibilities to serve and then the disappointment that I would be dealing with when I wasn’t called, she would just remind me that it is God’s timing and to trust in that. You would think that as a minister I would understand and resign myself to this truth, yet having a highly developed competitive nature, to which Sharon Pribly can attest, and having a slight tendency to want to be in control of my environment it is very difficult for me to accept God’s timing when it doesn’t coincide with my own.
Then while on vacation this summer, bing, bang, boom, First Congregational of Rock Springs comes onto the radar as an opportunity for me to serve as your Transitional Minister. At the same time I was working on setting a date with a search committee in Connecticut for a time and place for a neutral pulpit, which means that we were coming to a final stage of interviewing for a “settled” pastorate position. I was feeling pretty convinced that Connecticut was going to be my new home. Then within a week’s time of learning about Rock Springs, I was given the opportunity to become your Transitional Minister. I could hear my mother’s voice saying, “you see, what did I tell you Steven, in God’s timing.” I could hear my mother’s voice because I was at my mother’s house when I said, “yes” to your offering.
If you look at the time line of my beginning my search through the UCC it seems to corresponds with the time when you were last looking for a settled pastor. One of several discussions I had as I was preparing to move to Rock Springs from some members dealt with the feeling that they thought, “it was the right calling to have Harvey Joyner” come as your pastor and the confusion of the stress that seemed to accompany his time with you. The confusion coming from, “if Harvey was the right person, when why would there have been so much stress?”. One could argue: “ why didn’t we see Steven’s name as one of the potential candidates when we were looking at Harvey?” After all you had called Harvey and now you have called me. My mother would counseled you, “God provides and in His timing.”
It is my belief that “God” was providing you the right person when you hired Rev Joyner. Only time will tell what God was providing for you, as well, as wanting to teach you as a congregation when he sent you Harvey. If you look to the apocalyptic writing in Luke, you will see that even as believers, we will not be spared the trials and tribulations that come in life, but as believers, we will know the comfort that God’s will is being worked out. So, just because there was strife and turmoil over the last few years, it doesn’t negate the fact that Rev Joyner’s calling wasn’t what God wanted for this church at that time.
I believe that there is great correlation with the annual season of Advent and where we are at here within this faith community at this season of Advent. We as a church are in an advent season within the life of this congregation. With this “interim” time that I am with you, we are in a time of the churches life of anticipation for the unconditional promise of God’s restoration! What is that restoration? Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all…And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God….”
As we begin this season of Advent, we are in anticipation to what the next chapter of ministry will look like. Let us look into our hearts and continually pray to God that our love will increase and our relationship, that personal experience with God will grow, so that when we come on December 25th to celebrate the birth of Jesus, we will be counted among those who help bring justice and mercy to a world that forgets to do so. For as Jeremiah wrote:”The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” Let us be expectant of that day to come and let us be a part of that branch that springs up for David. Let our hearts continue this season to deepen in love for another and of all peoples.
Amen!
By Rev Steven R. Mitchell
First Sunday of Advent
Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36
“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.” What apocalyptic language to be given to us on this First Advent Sunday! This idea of apocalyptic discussion seems so different from what I grew up with in terms of what we are “suppose” to be thinking about during Advent.
Last year, I had the opportunity to preach the First Advent Lesson at my home church in Seattle and it was there that I realized, I must have been asleep in class on the day the professor at seminary talked about Advent! For it was during my studying last year’s lectionary readings that I discovered that Advent Lectionary readings were filled with apocalyptic language and imagery.
I had grown up thinking that Advent was solely looking toward the nativity scene, where we get that warm, cuddly feeling of being at the manger with Joseph, Mary and the new born baby Jesus; a scene that speaks of love and joy; of promise and peace. Advent is a season where we listen to Christmas songs (sometimes more than we wish) on the radio; it is a time where we go shopping, being serenaded by MusSac with songs like Frosty the Snowman and Santa Baby.
Advent is the season where we see the winter landscapes become lit up over night with bright colors and outdoor displays of sleighs and reindeer; of angels and Santa Clauses, again giving a sense of warmth and comfort and safety from the frigid temperatures of the winter night. It’s a time where we are to prepare for Christmas Day! Well, you get the picture.
Advent is a season of preparation, but not just of the celebration of Jesus’ birth. Advent becomes a time when we reflect on Jesus’ coming in its many dimensions: his historical coming in his birth, his eschatological coming at the end of time, his existential coming into our own present.(common lectionary yr C) In the Epistle of 1 Thessalonians, we are being exposed by the existential coming of God, where in the Gospel of Luke the language is much more apocalyptic in nature, speaking to the end of all things and the coming of the kingdom of God. Even in the Hebrew text of Jeremiah, we are exposed to the idea of God’s completion of unconditional promises of restoration!(common lectionary yr C)
I would like for us to look just a little more closely to what Paul has written to the Thessalonian church: “Now may our God…and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”
I would like to share an exegesis of this passage as presented in Preaching the New Common Lectionary yr C: “When Paul wrote these words, he had just a few months earlier established the Thessalonian church. As one reads this epistle, it becomes clear that this young, fledgling church still occupies Paul’s thoughts and prayers. He recalls the success of the gospel among them, speaking of them as his “glory and joy”. His anxiety is that of the minister who frets over new converts who have been left behind in a struggling mission church, knowing that their faith is fragile at best.
Here we are at the very center of the Lord’s coming as it is understood existentially: the minister praying for the members of the church – thankful, joyful, triumphant, yet anxious to see them, concerned about their welfare, eager to teach them more and supply what is lacking, hoping that their love for one another will hold them together and that they will be presentable on the Day of the Lord. In another sense as well, this passage illustrates the existential dimension of the Lord’s coming. Here we see faith taking root – and taking shape. The Thessalonians have received the word of God not as a preacher’s oral report, but that which is at work within them as believers.
Paul’s hope is that their love for one another will increase even as his does for them, but their form of community is not to be narcissistic, turning in on itself and its own needs exclusively. Their love is to abound to “the whole human race”. The church that genuinely experiences the coming of Christ into its own midst most fully embodies this presence when it extends its love beyond itself and lives for others. The church thus becomes a reenactment of the Christ story – love for others.”
Today’s Epistle is very near to my heart as it seems to resonate the relationship that we here at First Congregational have with each other. “May our God and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you” This was a pray that I had been praying since October of 2003 after I had completed my Privilege of Call with the United Church of Christ and started to actively look for a congregation in which I could serve. With the receipt of each church profile that was searching for their next settled pastor I would pray that God would direct me to a faith community that He had in mind for me. Over the next four years I was the focus of four very differing search committees, always as one of the finalists being considered. Four times I was looked over as the other finalist was chosen.
My mother has extraordinary faith. She has a very simple believe that God provides and it will be in God’s on time. When I would discuss with her each of the four differing possibilities to serve and then the disappointment that I would be dealing with when I wasn’t called, she would just remind me that it is God’s timing and to trust in that. You would think that as a minister I would understand and resign myself to this truth, yet having a highly developed competitive nature, to which Sharon Pribly can attest, and having a slight tendency to want to be in control of my environment it is very difficult for me to accept God’s timing when it doesn’t coincide with my own.
Then while on vacation this summer, bing, bang, boom, First Congregational of Rock Springs comes onto the radar as an opportunity for me to serve as your Transitional Minister. At the same time I was working on setting a date with a search committee in Connecticut for a time and place for a neutral pulpit, which means that we were coming to a final stage of interviewing for a “settled” pastorate position. I was feeling pretty convinced that Connecticut was going to be my new home. Then within a week’s time of learning about Rock Springs, I was given the opportunity to become your Transitional Minister. I could hear my mother’s voice saying, “you see, what did I tell you Steven, in God’s timing.” I could hear my mother’s voice because I was at my mother’s house when I said, “yes” to your offering.
If you look at the time line of my beginning my search through the UCC it seems to corresponds with the time when you were last looking for a settled pastor. One of several discussions I had as I was preparing to move to Rock Springs from some members dealt with the feeling that they thought, “it was the right calling to have Harvey Joyner” come as your pastor and the confusion of the stress that seemed to accompany his time with you. The confusion coming from, “if Harvey was the right person, when why would there have been so much stress?”. One could argue: “ why didn’t we see Steven’s name as one of the potential candidates when we were looking at Harvey?” After all you had called Harvey and now you have called me. My mother would counseled you, “God provides and in His timing.”
It is my belief that “God” was providing you the right person when you hired Rev Joyner. Only time will tell what God was providing for you, as well, as wanting to teach you as a congregation when he sent you Harvey. If you look to the apocalyptic writing in Luke, you will see that even as believers, we will not be spared the trials and tribulations that come in life, but as believers, we will know the comfort that God’s will is being worked out. So, just because there was strife and turmoil over the last few years, it doesn’t negate the fact that Rev Joyner’s calling wasn’t what God wanted for this church at that time.
I believe that there is great correlation with the annual season of Advent and where we are at here within this faith community at this season of Advent. We as a church are in an advent season within the life of this congregation. With this “interim” time that I am with you, we are in a time of the churches life of anticipation for the unconditional promise of God’s restoration! What is that restoration? Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all…And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God….”
As we begin this season of Advent, we are in anticipation to what the next chapter of ministry will look like. Let us look into our hearts and continually pray to God that our love will increase and our relationship, that personal experience with God will grow, so that when we come on December 25th to celebrate the birth of Jesus, we will be counted among those who help bring justice and mercy to a world that forgets to do so. For as Jeremiah wrote:”The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” Let us be expectant of that day to come and let us be a part of that branch that springs up for David. Let our hearts continue this season to deepen in love for another and of all peoples.
Amen!
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