Get Off the Mountain

If you have ever been hiking (living in New Hampshire we certainly have the opportunity to hike) you will know that it makes sense that we can experience God on Mountains.
In fact we call experiences of encountering God mountain top experiences.
Mountain top experiences are those moments when you are suddenly in the presence of something magical and mystical.
I am not much of a hiker, but the times in my life when I have hiked I certainly can tell you that you feel closer to God when you are just below the clouds looking out over the majesty of God’s creation.
Today the Peter, James, and John have an incredible mountain top experience.
They come in the company of great religious figures like Moses and Elijah.
They see the inner part of Jesus shine through, and get a glimpse of the glory that is to come.
And yet they don’t seem to understand.
They don’t know what to say, or how to explain what they just saw.
What they do know is that something extraordinary has happened, something has been revealed to them that has not been revealed to the others.
Why they misunderstand is that living an ordinary life filled with service is also extraordinary.

I think our reaction to these mountain top experiences is the same as Peter’s.
We want to capture it, memorialize it, and then relive it as much as possible.
Peter wants to build a dwelling place for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus.
Perhaps this could be were pilgrims will come to worship and celebrate this moment.
They could sell little religious trinkets to tourist and remember this time of great revelation.
But Jesus has other plans.
It is time to get off the mountain and go back into the world.
It is time to get back to the job at hand.
It is time to set his face towards Jerusalem and his death and resurrection.
And so God commands the disciples to “listen to him”.
It is much easier to worship Jesus than it is to listen to him.

Listening to Jesus means putting away our idea of glory for God’s.
It means sacrifice and pain, over glory and victory.
I would much rather build the booths than do what Jesus says must be done.
Just a few verses before the transfiguration Jesus tells his disciples that he must go to the cross, die, and be resurrected on the third day.
We would much rather live on the mountain that have to walk back down into the humdrums of ordinary life.

I have had many mountain top experiences in my life.
Times when I have been grateful for the God’s presence in my life, times when I felt like God was breaking through.
I can tell you that not one of them stayed forever.
I always had to go back into the world; I always had to live my life.
One of them happened to me when I was on internership in Philadelphia.
I was in my car driving home for dinner.
The sun was setting just over the buildings.
I had this moment of clarification about my life.
I had a feeling of gratitude came over me that I can not to this day fully explain.
But I knew that all was right in the world.

Have you had that moment?
The thing is it was only a moment.
I had to go home to my wife who was upset that I was late for dinner.
I had to go back to the church that night and participate in a council meeting were people where upset because the church was not meeting their every need.
I had to go back to a neighborhood with shootings and drug deals.
I had to go back to the homeless people who asked me for money than stole the television from the church building.

The mountain leads us back into real life.
The story of Jesus is that he exists and operates on both planes.
Jesus is transcending of this world and the cares of this world.
There is a glory that shines from Jesus that no one can stamp out.
And Jesus is fully enmeshed in a world of sin.
Jesus does not stay in that transcending state removed from our ordinary complicated lives.
Jesus returns to work casting out demons, hanging around prostitutes, sinners, the poor, and the outcast.
Jesus is there in the middle of everyday life and death.
When I walked around the neighborhood in North Philly I often imagined that Jesus was right there with me.
What I realized is that these were just people trying to get by, living lives of extraordinary faith despite circumstances.

Perhaps that is what Jesus teaches us more than anything else that we must engage in the world because it is there that we experience the wonderful grace of God.
Sure it is nice to have the mountain top, but it is in the trenches that God is most active.

Most of us spend our lives searching for that mountaintop experience trying to find happiness.
And the truth is that it almost always eludes us.
We go to work at a job that is maybe not what we thought we would be doing, with people who annoy us.
We come home from work and we find dishes that need to clean, kids who need to be disciplined, spouses also unsatisfied with their lives.
We wonder where is the magic and majesty of life?
I believe it is right there in your life.
Not every day is lived on the mountain, sometimes it is in the valley below, it is on the long walk to the cross.

I knew this man named George he was 45 when I knew him.
He had it all.
He had a good job, a loving family, a nice house, two cars, and white picket fence.
And yet he was not happy with his life.
It was not what he thought it would be.
He thought there was something more out there, something better more glamorous.
He searched for it in all kinds of ways went on elaborate vacations, spent money on fancy things, tried to find it in hobbies.
None of these things are bad, but they kept him from seeing what God had given.
It kept him from seeing the true beauty and wonder of simply being a good husband, father, and co-worker.

In comparison, I did a funeral for a parishioner’s husband once.
Before the funeral his wife told me, “He wasn’t anything extraordinary. He just was a good husband, a good father, went to work, and loved to drink Dunkin Doughnuts.”
I disagree, doing these seemingly mundane tasks are extraordinary.
Working hard for your family, loving your wife and kids, helping out friends, giving to others are all things that we should uphold as really wonderful gifts.
Unfortunately, we don’t.
We want the mountain.
We want the extraordinary to be about amazing stories of white lights flashing and important religious figures showing up out of nowhere.

Today I am telling you to get off the mountain and come back into the valley.
It will be here that you will find Jesus toiling among ordinary people living extraordinary lives.
It is here you will see Jesus sharing a meal with the despised tax collectors, touching women with blood diseases, and drinking wine at weddings.

Because the ultimate mountain top experience for Jesus will be at Golgotha on a cross alone and deserted.
It will be there that he will show us true sacrifice and obedience.
It will be there that all of us will be invited to experience true forgiveness and healing.
It will be there that we will be challenged to truly practice discipleship which is about seeing beyond our own happiness to the good of all.
As St.Paul wrote, “We do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake.”

As we walk through the valleys, may we all be able to live ordinary lives and experience in them the extraordinary grace of God in Jesus Christ.
Amen

Say Nothing to Anyone!

“See that you say nothing to anyone.”
It is an interesting part of Mark’s Gospel.
It is what scholars call the messianic secret.
Jesus after healing people, and casting out their demons, insist that they not tell others what he is up to.
Why not?
Why wouldn’t Jesus want people to know about all the healing and casting out demons?
Any preacher/pastor would be psyched to have a throng of people coming to hear them.
But Jesus does not seem to want it.
It is weird.
Wouldn’t Jesus want everyone to know that he is there, that the kingdom has come near, that God’s reign has broken through?
Jesus only has a couple of years before his death he better use his time wisely and get the message out quickly.
He could set up a nice big mega church with stadium seating.
People would come from miles around for the show.
He would heal people tell them about kingdom, he would change the world, make a difference, and maybe have a nice little life for himself.
After all this is what we all want.
We want to be noticed, to have influence, and power.
Jesus could have had it all.
But he is blowing it because he is trying to keep it a secret.
Why?
When reading the Gospel of Mark we have to answer this question to understand the Gospel.

Healing was part of what Jesus did to show what the kingdom looked like, but it was not his mission.
Jesus was on a bigger mission.
Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem and to the cross.
Jesus knew that people could not understand the kingdom properly without the cross.
People misunderstood if they just thought of Jesus as a healer.
It was too small a role for him.
People could not understand what Jesus was doing without the cross.
So he wanted people to keep the healings a secret until they could be brought into their proper perspective.
Without suffering, without sacrifice, without service to others, there is no kingdom.

It is a hard thing for us to understand.
People say all the time, “If God is all powerful why is there such suffering in the world?”
Why doesn’t God do away with all the bad things in the world?
Surely if God had enough power he would, or if God does have the power and doesn’t do it than God is just cruel and uncaring.
Jesus wanted people to see the bigger picture, to understand God’s larger purpose and plan.
There is no world without suffering; there is no resurrection without sacrifice and pain.
It is not really a very popular message.
It is much easier for us to believe that if we have faith or no some secret than God will take away all of our problems.
It is much easier to see the victory than to live in the mystery of a real world living God.

The first funeral I was involved in after becoming a pastor was a five year old girl.
She died of some rare heart problems.
It was one of those times when you just think that the world is unfair.
It didn’t make any sense for someone so young to die.
Where was the justice in it?
It wasn’t right.
Her family was not members of our congregation.
She had been a student in our preschool.
Some members of our congregation asked me to go visit with her and the family in the hospital before she died.
I did and built a relationship with the family.
After she died the family informed me that the church they went to did not allow funerals in the church.
I thought this was really strange.
But you see their church was a healing church.
They believed that if you prayed hard enough, and believed hard enough you would be cured.
They also believed in modern medicine, but they just preached that God was a mighty God who would cure every disease of people who had faith in him.
They had crutches on the walls of their church from people who could not walk but had been healed.
Surely they had prayed for this five year old girl, they had faith that the mighty God would heal her.
And she died anyway.
So you see, they could not allow that funeral in their church.
It would prove them wrong, or perhaps worse that God was wrong.
I offered to let them have the funeral in our congregation, and said that their pastors could even come and do the service.
The family insisted that I be part of it, which I did and out of respect for the family I accepted the rather bogus theology of those pastors.
Don’t get me wrong it was tempting to be around them.
They had a mega church with five services filled to the brim.
They bragged about who they used to have a small church like ours until the healings started then they had to tear down walls and build bigger.
Victory is a much more attractive message for people.

I tell you this story because you can see the danger of resurrection without the cross.
We deny the reality of life.
We deny the true power of our faith.
We box God in to a particular set of preconceived theological notions.
Jesus did not want this to be his ministry.
Jesus wanted people to hear the message.
He wanted people to accept the Good News.
But they couldn’t if they simply thought he was a miracle worker.

The cross proved that God is with us through everything we face in life.
It does not remove us from the pain of the world.
It does not stop bad things happening to us.
It gives us strength and faith to deal with life as it is, not as we wish it could be.

For us the cross has real consequences.
It means that as a community of faith we cannot hide from realities of life.
We too must live into them.
We must deal with life in all of its unfairness and cruelty.
We must deal with our own mortality.
And then we must give ourselves over to the one thing that can really truly save us God’s amazing grace given in Jesus Christ.
Grace tells us that on the other side of grief there is joy, on the other side of suffering there is healing, on the other side of death there is life.
But we have to get through those things first.
There are no short cuts to the kingdom.
There are no short cuts in our lives.
There is no magic pill, or words.
There is only life in all of its hardships and disappointments, and faith in the good news.

This week we will have Valentine’s Day with all of its pronouncements about love.
Valentine’s Day is about all of the niceties of love with candy and hearts.
But if you have ever been truly in love you know that love is not always nice.
It means sacrifice and giving of yourself for others.
It means daily dying to yourself so that you can be reborn a child of God.
Real love is found through the cross of Jesus Christ that tells us not to seek our own satisfaction, not to seek our own happiness, but the happiness of others.
We cannot understand the wonder and mystery of God without the cross.

“See that you say nothing to anyone.”
When we tell others about our faith let us tell them about our pain and loss and how God got us through.
Let us live with others in their pain and loss so that we might be able to tell them the greater mission of God’s kingdom that comes from knowing his Son.
Let us love then…with real purpose.
Let us live with cross so that we might believe in the Good News.
That Jesus Christ died for us and loves us enough to live with us in our pain and sorrow so that we might be resurrected to live a life like his filled with sacrifice, and giving.

Amen.

Praying For A Miracle!

I am praying for a miracle.
I am hoping against hope.
I believe maybe foolishly that God’s power is greater than our power.
When we read stories about Jesus healing people we want to dismiss them, or explain them away.
Sure Jesus healed people in the Gospel, but that does not happen today.
When Mark was writing his Gospel he misunderstood healing powers of medicine and science for healing powers of Jesus.
These explanations might make us feel better about our lives and how difficult it can be to have faith when we are experiencing sickness and death, but it is not what the Biblical writers are trying to convey.
I want to state from the start that I am not against science or modern medicine at all.
And I do believe these things can be and are instruments of God’s healing power.
I am saying this morning that the Gospel’s are not about trying to explain everything that happens in terms of scientific truth.
They are trying to convey to us something unique about Jesus and his mission to bring the Kingdom of God to earth.
The healings that Jesus performs are meant to reveal to us that Jesus has the power over all things in our lives that stop us from fully living.

When we pray don’t we believe that God has the power to do what we ask?
If we take the Biblical witness seriously we have to believe that God has the power to heal.
That what we consider miracles are just a part of what God does on a regular basis.
If not then why do we even have a prayer list?
Why do we lift up these names every Sunday?
We do it because we believe in the power of God.
We believe that God can and does cure and heal.
I bet that if I asked everyone of you could tell me some miraculous story of when God healed and saved.

Jesus taught us that healing and curing were central to the mission of God.
The Kingdom is about total restoration of our mind, bodies, and souls.
To be a person of faith is to believe in that power even though it might seem foolish or hopeless.

I have known plenty of times in ministry and in my life when people of earnest faith prayed for healing, and the person died anyway.
Healing is not just about a physical reaction.
Healing is not just about being able to get up and walk again.
Every time we pray God acts.
Healing is offered to the person, not always in the way we had hoped or wished.
That is the hard part of faith to accept that even though we pray for things to happen in a certain way it does not always work out that way.
Perhaps God has another way to heal that we had not thought about.
For some a physical death is healing.
I know many prayers that started out as praying for physically healing ended up praying that the Lord be merciful to the person and take them home.
That too is a miracle.
Eternal life is miracle, and a major part of what we believe as Christians, and what Jesus taught.

This week I had a person call to ask for help from our congregation.
He needed money to get some things out of a storage unit.
I could not help him with this.
I explained that this was not a good use of the congregation’s resources.
We use that money to help people keep a roof over their head.
He understood.
He then went on to tell of all the hard breaks he has had in the last year.
He said to me, “You know what I really need is prayer pastor. Could you put me on your prayer list.”
This morning in our prayers we will be praying for this man.
It does not matter that you don’t know him or what his problems are; all that matters is that we will lift his name up to God for healing and wholeness.
God knows this man and what he needs, and now we will be the voice of God’s people crying out for his hurt and pain.
That is why we pray.
We pray for healing for a miracle.

I know that many of you out this morning have prayer concerns.
Many of you are looking for miracles.
Many of you are hoping against hope.
This morning I am telling you that Jesus Christ is here to heal and to restore.
This is the place to bring those concerns.
We pray because we believe in Jesus power, in God’s power to raise us up, just as he did to Simon’s mother in law, just as he did for all the people in Capernaum that day.

This week I was visiting with some of our members who are sick, who are dying.
We will pray for them this morning too.
Some of them are hoping for a miracle.
All of them are experiencing miracles.
Perhaps the miracle comes in more time with loved ones, enough time to say I love you and goodbye.
Perhaps it comes in God offering enough comfort and promise to be able to say that it is ok to die, because we believe in eternal life.
Perhaps it comes in the forming of real world healing, or a health professional giving really good care.
Perhaps the miracle is that we are all here this morning praying together in faith that God’s power will be experienced.

I need a miracle for my mother who is sick, for some friends who are sick, for people I know who are dying.
This is where we as the church belong next to those who are suffering.
In order to remain close to our lord we have to be with those who are not alright.
When we are close to those who suffer we remain close with our Lord.
Only after all things are lost do we remember that it is our faith that sustains.

One of the lessons I have had to learn over and over again is that prayer is sometimes the best medicine.
I cannot heal, but I know that Jesus does!

One of the things about Jesus is that he does not have to go looking for people to help.
They flock to him.
They crowd the door way of Simon’s house.
He attracts people who have needs.
People who are sick in mind, body, or spirit seek out Jesus because he is the one they know can heal completely physically and spiritually.

The same is true today.
We come to Jesus in those moments because we are looking for a miracle.
We are looking for a place to help heal us and restore us.
I notice that even people with no faith commitments will search out God when they are sick or dying.
People seek out God in the worst of times because that is the right place to turn, it is the place we go for miracles.
It is only God who saves.

There are many needs in our congregation, in our community, in our world.
I know that God in Jesus Christ can save.
That is my statement of faith.
I believe it because I have seen it all the time.
I am still holding out for a miracle.
I am still hoping against hope.
I still believe in God’s power to heal and send away restored.

We will sing in our hymn of the day today, “O, my soul praise him, for he is your health and salvation!”
This morning as we sing those words let us believe them with all our hearts.
As we pray this morning for all those in the world who are brokenhearted, powerless, sick, and dying let us believe that Jesus has the power to heal and save.
Let us leave worship this morning praying for miracles, hoping against hope, and praising the Lord for he is our health and salvation!
Amen

Have You Ever Been Possessed?

I have to admit this morning that I have been possessed by unclean spirits.
Often beyond my control I have lashed out at people, used my position to advance my own agenda, spoke when I should have listened, acted with vengeance when mercy was needed.
I am wondering if you have ever felt this way.
Have you ever walked away from a conversation and thought to yourself, “Why did I say that?”

For example, it happened one time that I always carry with me.
I was in college.
I went to the gym with some friends to play some basketball.
While we were there we started to have a one on one tournament with some other people.
One thing about me is that I can be fiercely competitive while playing sports.
I was playing a game against a fellow student who happened to be Jewish.
The game was close and we were both going at it really hard.
I scored a point and instead of handing me the ball he rolled the ball away from me.
I yelled back, “Didn’t they teach you manners in Jewboy School!”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth I wondered where they came from.
It was like I was possessed.

We all get possessed by evil spirits sometimes.
We lash out at others, we find it hard to forgive, we say things that tear down people instead of build them up, and we lose our cool.
I believe that Jesus Christ came to help us take away evil spirits.
Jesus came to help us break free from the chains of those evil spirits that possess us.
After being Baptized, tempted in the desert, announcing his plans for the kingdom of God, calling disciples, Jesus now sets out to show us what the kingdom looks like.
This morning in the synagogue Jesus confronts the demons that stop people from living in the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is about forgiveness, love, self giving, sacrifice, hope, and joy.
When we are possessed by evil spirits we act contrary to these things.

We all possess things about us that we would rather do away with.
Some of those things are passed down to us from our parents.
Some of them we are simply born with.
Some we learn from the world around us.
Whatever the case, we are tied to them.

I want to tell you this morning that there is a way out.
That is to submit to the authority of Jesus.
I knew after I said what I said on the basketball court it I was wrong.
I asked for forgiveness.
It was granted and in the end we became pretty good friends.
But I had to submit myself to a greater authority.
I think that it takes great humility to be a Christian.
It takes humility because we have to admit that we are not always right.
That is hard.
We have to admit that we make mistakes.
We have to admit that there are forces at work in our lives greater and more powerful than us.

Jesus confronts those forces head on.
He does not back down.
Jesus authority gives him the ability to confront those things in the world that stop us from being all that we are suppose to be as God’s children.
This is what makes Jesus unique for us that he above anything else can make our lives right.
You cannot get what Jesus gives anywhere else.
You can’t get it in money, in possessing things, in stature, in fame, in winning.
The problem is that if all your life is about is winning then eventually you will lose, and then what will happen.
I know in that moment on the basketball court I was possessed by an evil spirit because I was possessed with winning instead of trying to live as God had intended for me.

This is why God’s grace given in Jesus Christ is so amazing.
The people in the synagogue that morning experienced it firsthand.
They went away that morning filled with amazement at what they had seen and heard.
They had heard preaching not like the scribes and Pharisees.
Not filled with quotes from scripture and precedent, but filled with God’s healing balm of grace.
Jesus is the center of his own teaching.
No need to quote lots of other sources only need to preach what he knows to be true.

I am hoping every week when you come here that you will be able to hear those same healing words.
That in this sacred space you will be able to experience the authority that comes from Jesus Christ.
When we do I believe that it alters our lives.
It casts out our evil spirits and allows us to go back into the world with renewed passion to love more and hate less, forgive more and judge less, let go of our past and live into the day that was given.

This week a friend posted this quote on Facebook by Anne Lamott, “I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us."
This is how I feel about Jesus.
That in times when I am most possessed by evil spirits Jesus is always there helping to chase them away, and helping me to end up in a different spot, because Jesus is bigger than evil spirits.

Recently I had a couple of different people in our congregation come and ask me about demon possession.
It seems that in one case another Christian neighbor was obsessed with trying to keep out evil spirits.
So anything that was conceived by this person as being evil he was keeping at arm’s length.
Did not listen to certain music because that is how evil spirits get into our lives, does not read certain books, go to certain movies, or hang out with certain people.
My response is always that evil has no permanent power over us, because God is bigger and more powerful than evil.
If we encounter evil spirits in our lives than the answer is to hand them over to God and watch them go away.
The story of Jesus is even more powerful, because it shows us that God’s power is already unleashed and working in the world around us.
God sent his son to free us from evil, to deal it a fatal blow.
When we do something evil we know it, because we know Jesus and what is expected of us.
I knew what I said to my friend playing basketball was wrong.
I would suggest to you that most of the time we know what is wrong, and do it anyway because we are possessed.
In Luther’s words we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.
But thanks be to God that Jesus has come to cast out the evil spirits and save us from our sin.

My favorite mystic is Julian of Norwich.
She was a mystic in the 15th century right before Martin Luther.
She had revelations of what God was about.
She wrote them down for us to enjoy today.
In one revelation she saw how Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection had defeated the power of evil.
When Julian realized this she laughed at the power of evil.
“For I understood that we may laugh in comforting of ourselves and joying in God for that the devil is overcome.”
This is how Jesus freed us from evil spirits.
Is that not good news for us!
Does that not allow us to laugh while we comfort ourselves in knowing the evil can and will be overcome?

Those of us who have been studying the book of Revelation on Wednesday nights also get to see how the blood of Christ frees us from the powers of evil that tries to hold us back.
When we are free from this power we are able to live in the Baptismal covenant that God made with us.
We can be the people that God hopes we will be, and sends us Christ to become.

So let us leave worship this morning marveling in the grace of God that frees us from evil spirits, and gives us the power to be the people of God.
Loving our neighbors, speaking words of encouragement, walking in humility, forgiving others as we are forgiven, and doing justice for the poor and broken hearted.
Amen

Turn Around!

We have had a very successful year at Concordia Lutheran Church.
Today at our annual meeting you will hear all kinds of good news.
Good news about our worship attendance being up.
Good news about Sunday school growing.
Good news about our financial stewardship growing.
Good news about our membership growing.
All these things are good.
We should celebrate them and rejoice together in our mutual ministry.

This past month as I was preparing for our annual meeting I was thinking about all our success and what would be the message I would give to you this Sunday.
Once again the Spirit of God moved because the lessons for today say it better than I ever could.
God is always calling us away from our comfortable lives and into good news.
Maybe a better way to say it is that God is always interrupting our lives and calling us to turn to something new.

Think about Simon and Andrew this morning.
They are at work.
They have been doing this for a long time.
Their father before them fished these waters.
They probably thought that for the rest of their lives this is what they would be doing.
Waking up every morning, mending nets, pushing out the boat, sailing on the water, catching fish, hauling them in, selling them, going home, eating, going back to bed.
Some days were better than others, some days there were storms or trouble, but it was usually about the same.
Then Jesus arrives, calls them, and everything changes.
I am hoping that in the next year of our ministry together this will continue to happen, both for our congregation, but also for all of you individually.

We think of churches as static things.
In many ways it is comforting to think that something in our lives will always be the same.
We can count on the church to remain the same to always be there in the same way it was.
However, the truth is that the Church is not a static thing.
If it is to constantly hear the call of God it can never be static.
The church always is in motion.
I think it is merely a reflection of our own lives.
We are always in motion.
Things change.
People grow up, grow old, grow apart, and grow close.
This is the nature of the world.

I guess the question for all of us is how will we handle it?
What will be our reaction?
I suppose that one thing we could do is fight against it.
We could try with all of our might to keep things from never changing by creating traditions and set patterns of thought and behavior.
This is usually what I do.
I create in my life tons of traditions to keep up the appearance of things remaining the same.
If we do something once and it is good instantly for me it becomes a tradition that can never change.
I will tell you I am working on this because it is unhealthy, and a lot of work to try to keep everything exactly like it was.

We could also simply become upset and angry that things are not the way they once were.
I have spoken many times about this condition.
It is really not good for you, because you become mad about things that you have no control over.
You end up alienating other people who don’t share that same world view.

Today I am going to go against type and suggest to all of us that we learn to embrace it.
Jesus told people that the “Kingdom of God had come near. Repent”
We hear that word repent and we think about confessing all the sins that we have committed in our lives.
But hear it is about turning ourselves around changing the direction of our lives in order to be able to correctly see the Kingdom of God that is already here now.
Unless we allow God to turn us around we can never hear and see the good news.
We will not be able to follow Jesus down unwalked paths.

As we enter this new year of ministry together perhaps this is a helpful image in our church and in our lives.
We might find our lives on a certain path, going a certain way.
Today is a good day to hear Jesus tell us to turn around look at things in a new way.
I know that there are probably whole hosts of ways that I need to turn around.
There are things I need to look at from a fresh perspective.

There is immediacy to our life.
We don’t have all the time in the world.
Our lives are finite with a limited amount of time.
More than this Jesus tells us that God’s kingdom time is now.
Right in front of us, now, is the good news that we need to hear and believe.

We can’t look back because that is already done.
We can’t look ahead because we don’t know what that will be.
We can only have now!
We have the immediacy of this moment.

I know that some of you feel at times that we as a church are moving too quickly.
Things are happening at an accelerated rate.
Know that I am sensitive to that.
But also know that there is immediacy to our actions.
The Church as we know it is dead or dying.
If you don’t believe me all you have to do is look at the statistics and see that we are heading in a negative direction.
I believe that God is calling us to turn and see things from a different perspective.
I understand that it is not easy.
It probably was not that easy for the disciples either.
But we have to be open to the ways that we will be turned around.

I had this moment this year when I panicked.
Three leaders Alva Hauser (Who was head of our altar guild), Phil Joseph (Our council president), and Bob Hunton (Our treasurer) were all stepping away from the positions they currently held.
Three leaders of our congregation who I rely on were stepping away from their positions!
The reasons for their stepping away were varied and none of it was due to hurt feelings or bad blood.
It was just natural for these three leaders to step away.
In Phil’s case it was constitutionally mandated that he step down.
But when I heard it I freaked out.
I relied on those people.
I knew they would do the job.
It was comfortable for me.
For example, I never worried about the altar.
I knew that Alva would make sure everything was just right.
What was the church going to do without them?

But I was turned around.
God calmed me down.
The Holy Spirit reminded me.
This is the natural course of action for congregations.
This is the way things go.
New leaders will be called, new people will step up.
Those three leaders are being called in a new way.
At the end of it I could see it as a good thing.
I share this with you so that we can remember that God is always turning us around.

The question I want to leave you with is where do we need to be turned?
What are the things that we have become so comfortable with that they keep us from following Jesus?

As we individually and as a church face the challenges ahead let us remember to let God turn us around so we might here the call and believe in the Good News.
Amen

Tough Mind and Tender Heart

It seems that we are living in a time like that of Samuel.
It seems that we are living in a time when the word of the Lord seems rare, when visions are not widespread.
I remember in seminary being at a discussion about social inequality.
A retired pastor got up and asked, “When are we going to see person like Martin Luther King again.”
He went on to talk about how young people didn’t care like they used to back in the day.
He believed that the church had become complacent with prestige and power.
I thought his assertions where not only not untrue, but extremely insulting.
First of all not all of us are called to be Martin Luther King Jr.
We are not all called to be a prophet of a movement for justice.
We are not all called to preach and call people to think about their actions in light of the Gospel.
Secondly, I thought it was offensive because there are plenty of people in our world fighting for justice; standing up for what is right and good.
There are plenty of people advocating for peace, working with people experiencing poverty, fighting the good fight.
I happen to know that in Concord there are many good people out there doing the Lord’s work with passion.

It is wrong to assume that Martin Luther King went into the ministry to become an international figure for justice and peace.
By all accounts he went into the ministry to preach the word of God.
It just so happened that just after arriving in Montgomery Alabama, to be the new pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, King was called to be the leader of a movement.
That is the way calling works.
It is about our context and the circumstances around us.
One of the reasons there can never be another Martin Luther King Jr. is because there already was one.
Because Martin Luther King heard God’s call and saw the vision of a different world we no longer need to fight the battles that he fought.

We today have newer battles to fight.
This morning I want us to think about what it is that God is calling us to do?
Because when we hear God’s call, when we respond to it, two things happen.
One, we see and experience great things.
Jesus promised his disciples that they would, “You will see great things than these.”
Later in John’s Gospel Jesus will tell his disciples that they will also do greater things than these.
I believe responding to God’s call opens our lives to all sorts of wonderful blessings.
We get to see the heavens open up and angels ascending and descending.
The second thing is that our life will become harder.
Think about Samuel this morning.
After hearing God’s call the task that is given to him is to tell his boss, Eli, that God is firing him!
Not an easy task.
In fact, Samuel is reluctant to do it.

Hearing God’s call and responding usually means that we will have to take on something that is going to be controversial and difficult.
It means giving up some comfort on our part.
Again, it will bring great rewards, but always at a cost.

The people who have dared to follow God know this truth.
Because, ultimately following God’s call for justice and peace lead to Dr. King’s assignation.
Following God’s call lead Jesus to be crucified.
I am not suggesting that any of you go out looking to be crucified, but I will suggest that following God’ call cost us something.

This week I kept coming back to this question: Since we are not Martin Luther King Jr. or Jesus, What is it that God is calling us to?
It is a hard question because often times we have a hard time even hearing God.
I think one of the great tasks that we face in our day is trying to hear God through all of the clutter.
In our day when there are so many opinions about everything, and all those opinions are right at our finger tips, how do we hear what is authentically God?
There are people telling us that God is found only in traditional doctrines know by the church for centuries.
Others are telling us that God is found in new innovative programs, worship, and theology.
Still others tell us that we can only hear God’s voice through a literal interpretation of the Biblical witness.
Some will say that the Biblical witness must be heard through the cultural lens that we know today.
We hear opinions from politics from left and right wing preachers.
Each of whom is sure that God is heard and found where they are pointing.
In such a world with bloggers, pundits, and prognosticators with all their own slants, prejudices, and opinions how do we know what God is really saying?

This morning I would like to suggest some ways that we can hear God’s voice.
We can recognize God talking to us when we hear words that are tough minded and tendered hearted.
Dr. King in one of his sermons suggested that these are two characteristic Jesus’ demanded of his disciples.
On the one hand we must use our minds for “incisive thinking, realistic appraisal, and decisive judgment”.
Discerning God’s call always includes thoughtful examination of the facts before us.
We must in this time weed out those things that are not true.
Just because we hear something on Television, read it on the internet, or see it in print that does not make it true.
A tough minded person always asks the next question, and wonders at the possibilities.

But discernment can never forget to be tendered hearted.
When discerning God’s call we must remember that God always calls us to love.
God calls us to give of ourselves for others, and to love even those who are our enemies.
As Dr. King once said, “On the one hand, God is a God of justice who punished Israel for her wayward deeds; on the other hand he is a forgiving father whose heart was filled with unutterable joy when the prodigal returned home.”

For me it comes down to being able to stand up for the things I believe in, to fight for what I believe to be just and true, but it is also about never losing sight of the fact that God never calls us to hate our neighbor even if they disagree with us.

I think the implication of this is that when we set out on a course to be a disciple of Jesus Christ our lives are forever changed.
We see great things and do great things.
And our lives are never quite the same again.

When God calls you what will be your response?
When God calls you to see and do great things will you be able to hear and respond?

God will call you.
God will call you to have a tough mind and tender heart in all sorts of difficult situations.
Will you be able to hear that call?
Will you be tough minded and tendered hearted?
When your co-workers are gossiping about someone else will you be able to stand up for the person being picked on?
When your cousin asks for forgiveness for the remark they made about you at a party will you be able to forgive?
When your kids steal a candy bar from the store will you be able to discipline them?
When we hear on television that such and such candidate, said this or that, will we be able to discern what is true, honorable, kind and good?

We will be able to hear God’s call, if we talk about it with other people of God.
Just like Samuel needed Eli to help him hear God’s call, just like Nathanael needed Philip to help him hear Jesus call, we need each other to help us hear God through the clutter.
We will be able to hear God’s call if we are able to remain close to Jesus.
Just like the disciple’s needed to remain close to Jesus so he could show them the way, truth, and life we need Jesus in order to help us discern what God would call us to do.

In this time of what seems like God’s silence and visions that are not widespread let us remember to listen to God’s call and follow with a tough mind and a tender heart.
Amen

Happy New Year!

There is a moment that happens for me just after midnight on New Year’s Eve.
It happens just after the ball drops and I hug my wife and friends to wish them a “happy new year”.
It is a moment when I believe that this year will be better than the last.
It is a moment when I kick the old to the curb and anticipate the arrival of the new and possible.
I love that moment.
However, it is usually short lived.
I started my New Year off this year by attending a funeral of a dear soul who always brought joy to whatever room she was in.
On my way home from the funeral I thought, “This year will be no different than last year.”
This year will bring its shares of good times, celebrations, and joys.
But like last year there will also be disappointments, deaths, and difficult times.
I don’t want my sermon to be a downer to all of us this morning.
There is nothing wrong with that moment just after midnight when all things seem possible, when hope shines into our lives with the possibility of a new beginning.
It is just that our lives are not that simple.
Just because we turn the page on the calendar it does not mean that life will not go on as normal.
In this year life will go on.
There will be children born, celebrations, joys, and sorrows, and people will die.
I suppose that it is the uncertainty of life that makes us yearn for signs of something more stable.

As I was thinking about this year to come and its uncertainty about the things that we might face I was sure about something.
God will still be our companion in 2012.
We will still be called to live in the grace and mercy of God.
Perhaps that is why life is so uncertain to begin with.
It forces us to trust our lives to God’s care.
If we could know everything, if we could control life then there would be no need for God.
If we could stop our loved ones from becoming sick, if we could stop ourselves from practicing self destructive behaviors, if we could stop others from committing sins, than we could live life without ever having to rely on God.
Our own will is insufficient for these things.

When I was at the funeral this week I was sitting in my pew before the worship service began and I was looking around at the Church that was packed with people.
Every pew was filled, and people were standing along the walls and in the back.
I was thinking that this is why the Church will never go away completely.
We will always need a place to come and collectively grieve together.
We will always need a place to come and pray that God’s grace will be sufficient for today.
We will need a place to come to when everything else is falling apart around us.
When we have lost our money, our families, our friends, and all the things that keep up the illusion that all is well then we will see clearly our need for God.

That is what our Baptism is about helping us live our lives under a new understanding.
Baptism brings into our life a different reality.
In Mark’s Gospel Jesus Baptism is the beginning of his public ministry.
Thirty years into Jesus’ life he begins this important work.
And the world will never be the same again.
For the world it meant that God cannot be kept any longer in the heavens.
God is not the merely the work of theologians and church people.
But God becomes part of the human story.
God in Christ begins a new chapter.
At Jesus Baptism the heavens rip open and God comes out of the heavens and is set loose on the world.
We will see during the other Sundays in the season of Epiphany that from here on out Jesus begins to challenge the things in life that hold us back.
He cures the sick, cast out demons, challenges deeply held religious beliefs, and sends the powers of death and sin on the run.

Perhaps for us Epiphany is a good time to wonder what will be new and possible in our lives.
Our baptism is not merely about having an insurance policy that gives us something to lean on in the tough times.
Rather our baptism is the means by which God has communicated to us his grace.
Because of God’s grace every day we are able to rise and challenge death and sin.
Baptism allows us to deal with the uncertainty of life.
One of the things I am becoming more thankful for is the feeling of loss.
It reminds me that I am alive; it reminds me that I love and care.
My life with God allows me to live more deeply into the human reality.
It is not a way to avoid life but rather a way to live more deeply.

If we are always protecting ourselves against feeling bad than we will never truly live.
Baptism helps us live trusting that God is at work in all things.
When you were baptized when the pastor dunked or poured water on your head life changed.
In that moment and for the rest of our lives new possibilities were opened up to us and the world.

One thing is for sure about this New Year we can never go back to 2011.
Whatever mistakes we made, whatever triumphs we had they are in the past.
We are now on the move to our next destination.
We have new challenges to face, and new mountains to conquer.
I hope in this New Year you will be able to trust that in all things God is near.
God is with you and around you.
God is working through you.
God is speaking words from the heavens, “This is my beloved child and with him/ her I am well pleased.”

Those words that are spoken to Jesus God also speaks to you.
They are spoken especially in those moments when you feel like they can’t possibly be spoken about your life.

There are many people who get this whole religion thing way wrong.
Like I said earlier they see it as an insurance policy against anything bad ever happening to you.
If I have faith, if I do the right things, if I live the right way than everything will work out the way I think it should.
I consider myself a pretty religious person.
I go to worship every Sunday, I study the Bible daily, I pray every day.
On days when I am visiting shut-ins I will take communion three or four times.
Despite this since July of 2011 the following things have happened in my life.
My wife’s grandfather died, my grandmother fell and broke her hip and moved into a nursing home, our son’s godmother (who is only 34) and lifelong friend was diagnosed with an aggressive life threatening type of cancer, another one of my long time friend’s mother died, my mother was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer.
I tell you this so that you see that having faith is not a guarantee against anything.
It is not insurance of a life free from pain or struggle.
Instead it is about a God who comes out of the heavens to tell us that we are beloved.
A God who offers us words of grace at every turn.
It is a God that encourages us to love in a world where things are uncertain.
None of the people we love will live forever.
That love that we share with others is proof that we are still alive, that we still care, that we are living out what God put us on this earth to do.
If you want a life that removes us from pain, and the hard parts of life than being baptized into the Christian faith is not for you.
Jesus baptism leads him to the cross.
It leads him to be tempted, reviled, deserted, betrayed, and ultimately killed.
Ours leads us into a life that is always uncertain, but always blessed by a God who has come out of the heavens to call us beloved.

In this season of Epiphany let us be able to see God at work in our lives.
Let us be able to trust God even in situations that are out of our control.
Most of all let us remember that God has called us beloved!
Amen