curricula vitae

Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

B.A. Dominican University, River Forest, IL, May 2001

Major: Philosophy Cumulative GPA: 3.6/4.0

Minor: Pastoral Ministry Major GPA: 3.9 (Cum Laude)

President of Phi Sigma Tau (Philosophy Honor Society)

A.A. College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL

Canterbury Christ Church College, England Debate Team

EXPERIENCE Franklin Grove UMC Franklin Grove, IL July 1, 2004 - present

Licensed Local Pastor

Irving Park United Methodist Church, Chicago, IL 2002 - 2004

Student Associate Pastor

*Frequent sermon deliveries, pastoral care/visits, sextant

Community United Methodist Church, Brookfield, IL 1998 - 2002

Liturgist

*Lay leader to annual conference

*Frequent sermon deliveries, Co-creator of liturgy

Youth Pastor Summer 1998 - 2001

*Organized Vacation Bible School curriculum

*Worked with confirmands to organize service trips

VOLUNTEER Kreider Services, Dixon, IL October 2005 - current

*Client Advocate for mentally challenged individuals

*Contribute to policymaking for the Advocacy and Rights Advisory Council

Helping Hand Rehabilitation Center, Countryside, IL February 2002 - 2004

*Client Advocate for mentally challenged individuals

*Contribute to policymaking for the Advocacy and Rights Advisory Council

Thomas Hughes Children Library at HWL, Chicago, IL Summer 2001, 2002

*Volunteered four hours a week assisting children to read

ADDITIONAL Hon. William Young Boston, MA Summer 2003

WORK *Christian ethical advisor

EXPERIENCES

Garrett-Evangelical Library, Evanston, IL October 2001 – May 2002

*Book binder and restorer

Brookfield Financial Plans, Brookfield, IL February 1998 – April 2002

*Created financial planning portfolios

*Checked tax returns

Advent 2, year A
Isaiah 40:1-11
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8
Franklin Grove UMC

There was an interesting editorial in the paper called “Getting a head start on holiday feasting”. In it, the author compares two excellent Turkey dinners- one at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Sterling and one at Franklin Grove United Methodist. Now it would probably be really petty and childish to point out the comparisons- but I'm going to do it anyhow. This little paragraph right here is about Sacred Heart. It says...

“Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Sterling, for one, had an excellent turkey dinner. In this one, you serve yourself, waiting in line as you gather your food a nd then you take a seat at a long table and dig in. Scouts are available to help you carry your tray, if you need assistance.!”

That's nice. And all of this is about us. Now, if we look at Ms. Mills description of the experience of a Franklin Grove United Methodist Turkey Supper, I think we get a little bit of insight into why the season of Advent is such a holy time in the life of the church.
“At the Methodist Church” [they never say, United Methodist in the media] “in Franklin Grove, it's a different story. Their meal is an exact copy of what you might serve at your own Thanksgiving or Christmas feast. There you buy your ticket and get a number. You take a seat in the church and listen to the organist playing a variety of tunes and you wait. Every time you see a girl [that is Ann] come from upstairs [sic.] and walk toward the microphone, a silence envelopes the church. Everyone is waiting to hear their number called.”

You see, its in the waiting that the anticipation builds. It is in the waiting that your blood starts to thump as you look for a sign of it being your turn. Waiting for your number to be called.

“When the deed is done, happy people with the right number head downstairs to the meal. Those less fortunate, take up the babble of conversation again, heads turning now and then to make sure they aren't missing the next numbers.”
Remember last week when Mark warned us, keep awake- stay alert. for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep alert.” Now, it has been 2000 years since Jesus came. We are tired, we are weary, we are losing hope that our number will ever be called. For so many of us, it is simply easier to be alert and excited for the immediate- the turkey, the Christmas packages, the parties, than it is to keep alert and excited for the most important event the Universe has ever seen- the coming of our Lord. Advent is that time in the church year where we are reminded, re-awakened into the awesomeness of the Mystery. Advent is the time of preparation for the coming of our Lord again. It is our break from the 'babble of conversation' to turn our heads, to turn back, to repent toward the Lord to make sure that we aren't missing the numbers.

“One of the Millses' favorite parts of this particular meal is the wait. It's a time to be used for people spotting. You might see someone you used to work with before you retired or someone who used to live by you. You may even have your current neighbor sit down in the pew beside you.”

Now there is a thought. And who is your neighbor? I guess that's a whole 'nother sermon. Let's go on...

“The first thing you do when you sit down is to share your number with the rest of your party and then with anyone you know. “What number are you, Martha?”
“114,” Martha replies.
“I've got 97,” is the answer, which causes Martha to add, “How nice.”
She doesn't mean it though because you'll get to the dinner before her.”

Ah, the classic story of human competition. It is so ingrained in who we are that no wonder Jesus had to spend so much time teaching his disciples, teaching us who want the good seats, the seat of honor, the seat that is not by the kitchen door with the waitress constantly breezing past you, no wonder Jesus had to spend so much time teaching us who argue who is the best disciple, who should be Jesus' favorite, and who should not be invited to the table at all, it is no wonder that Jesus had to tell us over and over again, directly, through parable, and through his actions, that the Kingdom of Heaven is different. In the Kingdom of God, there is no lack so there is no competition. There is only the abundant goodness of God. In fact, the first are last and the last are first. And so if we are Martha, we can truly share in the better part when Ms. Mills here says, I got a ticket, #97, I am coming to the Gospel feast, we can say, 'how nice.' In fact, we can say Amen and Alleluia! Amen?

I'm going to skip down past the embarrassing part about the raffle to the next paragraph.

“When the blessed event occurs” [her words, not mine] “When the blessed event occurs and your number is called” [if that is not the first line to a hymn it ought to be,] “...you move down the stairs and are shown to a table. Before you sit down, you get to select your pie --- sometimes there's cake, but that's rare.

Then, seated at a large table with your group and several others, you're treated to a family-style Thanksgiving meal. Friendly people take care of your food whims, handing you coleslaw, potatoes, gravy, dressing/stuffing, turkey, bread and cranberries. You get something to drink, too, ranging from coffee to water and some parts in between.” [I am not sure what that means.]

“You can sit there and eat until the cows come home, but it won't take that long to fill up. Then you have to waddle back up the stairs and out the door. They don't have a nap room, [maybe something to bring up with the Trustees] so you'll need to head home for that.

The Methodists serve this tasty treat every year the Thursday before Thanksgiving. I always think of it as a practice run. If you don't find something to like about it, you'd better consider a hot dog on the real day.”

Now lets pause there, “you'd better consider a hot dog on the real day”. What might that mean to us theologically? What if we think of this life as a practice run and if “you don't find something to like about it, you'd better consider a hot dog on the real day?” You've heard me relate Dorothy Day's conversion experience a dozen times by now. Why did she become a Christian? She says simply, “because I wanted life, and I wanted life abundantly.” That is the tragedy of this Godless age. We see so many of our friend and families and neighbors and dare I say church members and yes, even our own selves at times who are merely going through the motions until they die. So much of the world is in a funk, a funk caused by having a God shaped hole in our hearts- a hole that we try and fill with sex, and alcohol, and television, and shopping, and fancy gadgetry, and unhealthy relationships, and excessive eating, and politics, and any number of other things that may or may not be good in themselves but we pervert in order to fill that God shaped hole. Meanwhile, we are so busy trying to pursue our desires- trying so hard and never catching up- that we miss the beauty of what we are given. But listen! Listen to a voice crying out in the wilderness, a voice of hope, a voice of freedom that is coming o yes I know, a voice that says, Prepare Ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. A voice that says repent, or more literally, turn around. Turn away from all of those things that sap your life, that get in the way of you having life and having it abundantly and instead turn toward God. Mark starts his Gospel out with this simple message. “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” “The one who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit”. The one who won't just fill that God shaped hole in your heart but overfill it- fill it so that you have so much life, so much love, so much light that you'll have no choice but to share it with everyone you meet, you won't be able to help but to share the good news. Look, we don't have to be clothed in camel's hair and eat locusts and wild honey to be prophets in the dessert. Sisters and brothers, look around. The desert is all around us. There are plenty of people who we come across every single day in our lives that in the world's funk and missing out- missing out on the abundant. Sisters and brothers, look around. There are no other prophets but you and me.

Back to Ms. Mills.

“There'd only be one reason I'd tell you not to try this – I wanted to find a parking space right near the church for once and if you don't go there to eat, I might just find one next year. But if you really want a delight, I suppose I can walk. Sigh.”

Oh, if that were our problem. Oh if the parking lot were so full that we needed to fill the lawn next store with cars or have our teens valet park. But that is really only a problem one day a year, the Thursday before Thanksgiving. And why is that? How does the word get out that we have turkey better than Mom's and pie, Oh do we have pie with the flakiest of flaky crust and the pumpkins dark orange but not burnt- but the word does not get out that we have the bread of life? The next morning, no matter how much they stuffed themselves they were hungry again. The next morning, no matter how much they drank of “the coffee to water and some parts in between” they were thirsty again. And yet here we have the spiritual bread of life of which you shall eat, and never be in want again. Here we bathe in the living water, the well from which we drink and are never thirsty again and yet there are plenty of parking spots. On that Thursday, I even think that there were people sitting in this front pew.

The answer is simple. We, the message bearers, the ones called “to be found at peace, without spot or blemish and with patience in the Lord of our salvation” we get distracted. We have the competing messages of the Great I Am and the great hype. And all to often, just because of the sheer quantity of it, we fall for the great hype. The great hype is Satan's tool. It is the way in which we are convinced that the immediate is better than the eternal. It is the way in which we are convinced not only that driving a certain car will make us successful but that being temporally successful is a worthy goal. The great hype is what tells us that we are not good enough, that we need to consume xyz to be worthy of love, that we need to look like so and so to have worth, that we need to focus on achievement even at the expense of our relationships with our families, with ourselves and with God. The great hype promises the abundant life, but leaves us wanting more. It promises us freedom, but enslaves us to itself. It promises us vitality, but leaves us too tired to make it out of the house on Sunday morning. That is the great hype that doesn't last. “The grass withers, the flower fades.” The promises are left unfulfilled and life is empty of meaning.
But. Sisters and brothers. There is another promise. Amen? That is the promise of the Great I Am. That is the promise that we are waiting to be filled. That is the check written by our God that will not bounce. The glory of the Lord shall be revealed and it shall be all the sweeter because of the waiting. That is what it means to be an Advent Christian. To be able to sing out with no uncertainty that freedom, o freedom is coming, o yes I know, o yes I know. That is the hope that we are awaiting to be born in Bethlehem- not just some cute little baby but the savior of us all, the one come to make us new, our deliverer, the one who can give sight to the blind and calm the storm with his hand, the one who is none less than God Godsself. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dead will live again.
The lame will leap, the dumb will speak the praises of the Lamb. The Lord of all creation, the ruler of all the nations. Heaven's perfect lamb. The Great I Am! That is who we are waiting for this Advent season, did you know?

So, this Advent season, lets swear against a hot dog sort of life and go straight to the feast. Amen? This Advent season, lets put aside the distractions of the world and focus on our Lord Amen? This Advent season, lets make it a point to invite everyone to the Gospel feast. Amen? Amen.

athanasiusjosiah.com

New pictures at athanasiusjosiah.com

Pray unceasingly?

So what can it possibly mean to pray unceasingly?
I have shared with this congregation before that one way that I used to try and condition myself to pray unceasingly was every time I saw an ad on the El or a billboard or a newspaper ad or even a license plate holder that said Wolfe Ford etc., I would offer up a quick, Hi God, kind of prayer. I got good at it. Of course, this worked much better in Chicago than it does here, as there were many more ads and it generally works better when you are alone than when you are having a conversation with someone. Nonetheless, I can't tell you how awesome of a spiritual discipline that was, so I would encourage it. However, as frequent as advertisements of all sorts are, does that really qualify as 'unceasingly'. Unceasing, nonstop, without end, constantly. This, it would seem, is impossible, right. What kind of cruel trick is it to demand the impossible from us? If this is the kind of responsibility that is being laid upon our shoulders, why are we so darn excited over the coming of the Christ child anyhow?
As we studied this passage in our Prayer Warriors group, we came across the idea that prayer is generally seen as either a monologue or a dialog. In other words, many of us think of prayer as a type of meditation- a spiritual way of talking to oneself. Or prayers where you offer up your sins and don't really expect a booming voice that says, “you are forgiven,” but have the assurance that it was heard. Monologue is probably the most common type of prayer. Others think of prayer as a conversation with God – a dialog. We expect that prayer ought go something like this... We ask God a question and God answers. “God, what should I do?” and we look for signs of what to do. “God, I need healing for...” and we look for signs of God's healing. Most of us don't expect a verbal response from God, but we look for signs. In our culture, we call people who talk to God Christians. People who talk to God a lot we call saints. People who hear God talking to them we call schizophrenic. So true dialog is rare in our context.
I looked to Rev. John Wesley's notes on the New Testament to see if I could gain some insight into how much prayer, monologue or dialog, that we had to really engage in in order to consider ourselves to be praying unceasingly. I mean, come on, surely we don't need to be offering up prayers while were sitting back and listening to music or operating heavy machinery or sleeping do we?
Well, Wesley cuts us no slack. First, he reminds us of the context that this command comes in. Paul says, rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. This makes it even harder, because it limits the type of pray that we are to do unceasingly. I am a big fan of the beautiful lamentations we read throughout Scripture. Also, I find the very idea that God encourages us, pleads with us, to go to Godsself, straight to the big cheese of the universe no need for a middle man but to the creator of all with our requests and petitions- I find this idea to be one of the most awesome concepts that we believe as Christians. Yet, these petitions don't seem to count toward our praying unceasingly quota. The text tells us to give prayers of rejoicing unceasingly. To have, as Wesley puts it, “uninterrupted happiness in God.” He goes on to say that praying unceasingly is the “fruit of always rejoicing in the Lord.” And in turn, giving thanks for everything is the fruit of both the rejoicing and praying. Giving thanks is the fruit, not a command to give thanks, but a reward of giving thanks. How odd. You do something and your reward is that you get to say thanks to the party that you did something for. Odd man mister Wesley is. But before we dismiss this as some queer passing fancy that he cranked out one morning let me tell you that all of what makes Wesleyan theology unique, the driving theological point that makes us distinctive as a people called United Methodists, lies on what comes after. In giving thanks for everything, we practice “Christian perfection.” And that is our Wesleyan take on humanity. We are not totally depraved beings. We are not absolved from responsibility with the attitude that if God wants us to be good, its up to God that we are good. No, we hold that, through the grace of God it is each of our responsibilities to be not only good, but perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect. And what is this perfection? Giving thanks always. Wesley tells us, “further than this we cannot go; and we need not stop short of it.” Sisters and brothers, you and I are capable of perfection, in this life, and it is somehow tied up in this idea of praying unceasingly. This idea of giving thanks, unceasingly. Wesley tells us that we can compare prayers to breathing- the breath of our spiritual life. “He that lives cannot possibly cease breathing.” Unceasing prayer is not a goal that we are working toward. It is the very life-line, the very oxygen of our spiritual lives and if we don't do it, we are simply dead.
These words from our founder laid down so heavily upon me last Tuesday night as I explored them and prayed over them. I was blessed, or maybe more accurately, I was cursed with the confidence that these words were God's truth. That Christian life depended on praying unceasingly and anything short is just pretending, just going through the motions. Well, I have to tell you, I am not in constant dialog or even monologue with God. Sisters and brothers, I can now tell you what despair over one's soul is really like.
So, I continued working on the text. I continued praying over the text. Let me tell you, sisters and brothers, we do not call the life of Jesus Christ good news for nothing. Let me tell you about another assurance that I had this week. An assurance that completely changed everything that I thought I knew about salvation, everything that I thought I knew about God, everything that I thought that I had learned in seminary, and many things that I had preached in this very pulpit. The humbling realization that I came to is that my conception of God was too small and my conception of prayer was too narrow. Let me back up spell and tell you that Ann and I have had a rough couple of weeks on several fronts. But we have been going through each challenge and each sorrow together. This is what relationship is about. A relationship is not about endless chatter, though a deep relationship has constant communication. A relationship is not constant back-scratching- that is, a healthy relationship does not depend exclusively on a 'you do this and then I'll do that' sort of transactions. So, why did I think that God wanted to hear constant chatter from our lips? Why did I think that the basis of our relationship with God is quid pro quo transactions? “God, I offer you praise, you bless me with your peace. Deal? Deal.”
Sisters and brothers, prayer is relationship with God. Prayer is not just talking to God or even talking with God. Prayer is being in an ever thankful relationship with God. Praying unceasingly, is throwing your lot totally in with God. It is marrying God, sharing a mortgage with God so to speak. Making what is good for God, good for you. Making what is disdained by God, disdained by you. Seeing the world, seeing your very life- not as something independent from God, but coexisting through God- that is unceasing prayer. That is true relationship with God. That is being born of the Spirit. That is Christian perfection. Amen?
You know, I got to be honest here. I never really liked the 'holiday season' much. I always saw a disconnect between the gifts given to rich children and the astonishing lack of our nation's and world's poor- all in the name of celebrating the birth of a lowly child in a manger. I am not a big fan of the hoaky songs that every single top 40 artist whips up to market for the holidays. And there is nothing like obnoxious drivers in overcrowded parking lots to sap your enthusiasm for Christmas. But, what if I truly prayed unceasingly? What if I truly saw the world through the eyes Christ and heard my sisters and brothers through the ears of God? What might I discover then? In this season of Advent, this season of preparation, this season of repentance and evaluation of our relationship to God- lets take stock in what we see and hear. A friend sent me an e-mail that invited me to think back to the sights and sounds of the holiday. To use the sights and sounds of today as sort of a litmus test of how we see the birth of a baby in a manger 2000 years ago. Think with me...
When you listened to the news do you see chaos and strife, or do you see sheep without a shepherd? When you went out to do your shopping did you see only hordes of people in the stores, or did you notice the worried expressions on some of their faces--worried because they are facing this Christmas without employment or without enough money and they don't know how they are going to make ends meet. Did this move you to compassion in the way that God is moved at each of our trials?
What did you hear this Christmas?
Did you hear only the blast of music and carols, or did you hear the silent sighs of the lonely and the bereaved who may be dreading Christmas because it accentuates their loneliness? What did you do to alleviate some of the world's loneliness? And in the midst of the sounds of honking horns and people arguing over parking places, did you hear faint sounds of laughter coming from church missions projects because you furnished food and toys for families and children and helped to rebuild a church in Gulf Port?
You see, so often what you see and what you hear is not dependent upon the event but upon your relationship with God. If you did in fact hear the cry from the lonely, the laughter of poor children, if you saw the sheep without a shepherd, then, and only then, might you have noticed the events that took place in Bethlehem that night. If you lacked that spiritual seeing and hearing then you probably would have been with the 99% who were present but who saw or heard nothing out of the ordinary.
One hymn, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, puts it best: “No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin. Where meek souls shall receive him still, the dear Christ enters in”.
Sisters and brothers, this Advent season and beyond, let us accept nothing short of perfection from ourselves. Let us pray unceasingly, prayers of thanksgiving. Sisters and brothers, as we commune with one another and our Lord this evening, let us be of a mind to have a perfect communion. A perfect merging of God's will and our own. As we take the body of Christ, let it transform us so that we can be the eyes and ears of Christ for the world. Amen? Amen.

Be Prepared!

25th Sunday after Pentecost
November 6, 2005

Scripture Lessons
Hebrew Scripture Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
Epistle Reading 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Gospel: Matthew 25:1-13

This is a text about being prepared. Do we have any boy scouts here? Join me in the Scout's Pledge...
On my honor I will do my best

To do my duty to God and my country

and to obey the Scout Law;

To help other people at all times;

To keep myself physically strong,

mentally awake, and morally straight.

And what is the Scout motto? Be prepared. This morning, we are going to look at what it might mean to be prepared for the Kingdom of God. What will be required of us when we wake up to see the bridegroom ready to start the feast? As we dig through the Scriptures, we find at least 3 themes. We need to be prepared by accepting Christ, by laying down a firm foundation, by being prepared in prayer.
If we want to be at the Wedding Feast of the bridegroom, we have to first get on the guest list. We have all been given the invitation. You may remember from four weeks ago when Jesus said, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a King who threw a banquet and ultimately invited everyone. Or our first talk on grace, the Prevenient Grace, that is nothing more than an invitation- God wooing us since the dawn of creation. But to get on the guest-list, you have to say 'Yes'. To turn in the R.S.V.P. A.S.A.P. The unfortunate and uncomfortable reality, the one that we are embarrassed to talk about, is that accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior is a requirement, a prerequisite, to getting on the guest list of the heavenly banquet. Be prepared by accepting Jesus Christ.
But simply being on the guest list is not enough. In this allegory, we are told ‘Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.” Now lets stop right there. I think that it is safe to assume that all of the bridesmaids at the wedding are on the guest list for the banquet. But as we read on, we see that only half of them make it through the gates. The tradition has always held that the bridesmaids represent the church. And so, this allegory is a tragedy. Think of a wedding, any wedding that you may have participated in. When I have think weddings that I have been a part of, and I think of the rest of the wedding party, and then I think of how I would feel if half of my friends couldn't go to the reception- it saddens me. And so, even for those who are prepared, who are invited in to the heavenly banquet, there will always be a tinge of sadness and regret. Why didn't I remind my friends to go get some oil? Why didn't I do more to make sure that they had what they needed? Could I have given them a ride to the lamp shop? Could I have made the oil more accessible to all? At the end of the day though, it is up to each of us to be prepared. “Oh nobody else, will walk it for us; we have to walk it by ourselves.”
We need to be prepared by laying down a solid foundation. We read before about the wise and the foolish. We read how the wise man built his house on the rock and the foolish man built his on the sand. To get at what we mean by being prepared with a firm foundation let us look at the real story of Rosa Parks. I have heard repeated many times this week the lies that my teacher told me. The story of Rosa Parks usually goes something like this. Once upon a time, their was an African-American woman in the south who sat down in the front of a bus. Then a white man came along and asked for her seat. Well, she was tired and didn't want to move to the back of the bus so she decided to say, “no” and this started the Civil Rights Movement.
This is the way the story usually goes. You get the image of a regular old lady who one day just snaps at the injustice around her and says, “no”. The real story, as told by Ms. Parks herself, is that she had been actively involved in the civil-rights movement for quite some time before this historic day. In fact, she was the secretary of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP. Parks said, "People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” Ms. Parks did not come out of nowhere. She was shaped in a community- 2 communities to be more precise. The first was the American South, where from the day she was born she was told that she was inferior, that she had to walk to her nearly condemned school while the white kids took their new bus to their new school. She was told that she was inferior when absolutely everything in her society was given a label of white and black. Most of us believe what we are told over a lifetime- and that is a powerful reason why segregation lasted so long. But she was also a part of another community. She was brought up in strength in the civil rights movement. Through this other community she was putting into practice what she had read all along in the Scriptures- that she was a child of God and therefore equal to all other children of God. It was this community building her up that gave her the foundation needed to stand up against that bus driver. Alone, she would have crumbled. But with her foundation, she recalls that she felt like she had a warm quilt of strength at the moment when she felt called to make history.
If we are going to be prepared for the kingdom of heaven, we need to ensure that we have a solid foundation. A foundation that only comes from being in the community that we call the church. It is only by allowing ourselves to be shaped into the body of Christ that we are able to be prepared. That is why communion is so important for us. It is the table that we gather around that builds us up in community. That allows us to commune with Jesus Christ and with one another. Be prepared by making a firm foundation.
Be prepared to pray. Being prepared to pray means that in any circumstances, a prayer is ready on your lips. And the only way that you can do that is if it is such an ingrained habit that you can't help but pray.
“Mary Lou Retton catapulted to international fame at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, becoming the first American [to] ever win the Gold Medal in the All-Around in women's gymnastics. When asked about the secret of her success, Mary Lou said, "To be a complete gymnast, someone should be able to sneak up [might I add, like a thief in the night] and drag you out at midnight [maybe like the bridegroom], push you out on some strange floor -- and you should be able to do your entire routine sound asleep in your pajamas. That's the secret. It's got to be a natural reaction."”
Because of the countless hours spent in the gym practicing, gymnastics became as natural to Mary Lou as breathing. So this morning we ask ourselves, does praising God come naturally to you? The opportunity for practice is now. Practice now so that you will be ready to spend eternity praising Him. Through prayer and song, each day is another day to perfect your praise. (Turning Point Daily Devotional, 10-19-05)
We hear the same idea being illustrated as an explanation of why Japanese school children generally have a higher level of math skills than their American counterparts. Parents expect that their 8 year old children will not just know their multiplication tables, but ought to be able to tell you what 8 times 7 is when awoken from a deep sleep. Pray needs to be an immediate reaction to everything- that which comes before all else- worry, action, anger whatever. Prayer must come first. Matthew makes it clear in his telling of Jesus' parable that all of the bridesmaids were asleep. Elsewhere, we read that the bridegroom, that is Jesus, will come like a thief in the night. There are some who interpret the term gregoreo, keep alert, in the sense that we should constantly be on the lookout for the parousia, the end of the world and the coming of Christ. This is not the message that we see here. The idea is not that we need to be second guessing the time of the second coming, because scriptures say that that is the work of false prophets. Instead, we are to be in a state of constant readiness. We are not meant to have panicky last-minute anxiety, but the assurance of doing the appropriate thing at all times. I think back to school and those times where I waited until the night before to cram in everything that I thought would be on the test. And I compare the stress of those times to the other ones where I simply kept up with studying over the course of the semester. In the former, life was hell. I certainly did not enjoy the material and dreaded the test even more. But when I was prepared, I was able to soak in what I was learning, enjoy the growth, and when the test came, I enjoyed taking it in order to demonstrate what I had learned. This is the difference alluded to in this text. The bridesmaids see the bridegroom coming and some run off for last second preparations and others are prepared and greet him. It is as simple as that. Which path are you going to choose? Might I suggest being prepared by accepting Christ, establishing the foundation that can only come through community, and by being prepared in prayer. Amen?

The Amazing Prevenient Grace

The following text is a combination of a talk that I gave at a spiritual retreat (Walk to Emmaus) and then a sermon the following day (10-16-05) at Franklin Grove UMC.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

Amazing Grace. What is grace? The word grace comes from the Greek word charis, which means 'gift'. And hence the first word in this classic text. Amazing. What is so amazing about grace? Well, it just defies common sense. This is amazing because, if you think about, we are being offered a relationship with God. Little ol us, great big God. This is amazing. It is amazing that God has asked us into the Kingdom. In fact, God created us, with the hope that we would be in God's kingdom through God's grace. Grace is amazing because it is unearnable. It is a free gift given to us by a generous God. That is amazing because few of us, unless we are truly partaking in Christian charity give gifts freely. I'll be honest- I generally give nicer gifts to my brother than I do my sister because my sister generally gives nicer gifts to me than my brother. But God's grace- grace that climaxes in the gift of son Jesus Christ.

As I was typing my notes for this, I found something interesting. Unearnable is not even in the dictionary, let alone MS Word's spell check. Why? Because unearnable is not even in the vocabulary of the world. What do you mean unearnable? I earned everything that I have we can imagine ourselves saying. I then decided to do a Google search of the word 'unearnable'. There is no better way to get a pulse on the culture than to do a Google search. Try this at home. I only glanced at the summaries of the first 50 hits, but every single one of them linked to someone talking about God’s Grace. I think that is why some of us have a hard time getting our heads around what unearnable grace might mean. This must be why Jesus had to use such stark images in his parables and why Paul had to go to exhausting lengths at telling us about faith over works, and why the church has had to have so many painful corrections throughout the years. We simply cannot get our minds around unearnable. But think about it. What could we possibly offer to God? God the almighty, the one who created everything out of nothing. The alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, the big cheese over all. What could we possibly offer? Well, those who have been in a healthy relationship may know the answer. Love. God created us, God fashioned us in God’s image, and God desires one thing from us. Our love. Love that is forced, love that is manipulated like a giant puppet master is not love at all. So God gave us each wills. God gave each of us free choice. God gave us the opportunity to accept and return God’s love and like any partner in a healthy relationship, God gives us the ability to reject it. To go our own way. Alone. And look to the extremes which God went to in order to offer us the opportunity to enter into relationship.

The way that it is put in the old standard liturgy for communion, "Hear the Good News: Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. This proves God's love toward us. In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven." Now if that is not a sweet sound, I don't know what is. God calls us. God gives us the ability to answer the call. God gives us the means to sustain a healthy and thriving relationship with God. This is what grace is all about. Over the next two days, you will be hearing about this grace. More importantly, I pray that you are awakened to this grace in the fullness that God intends. The first part of this grace, God calling us, theologians call Prevenient Grace. The second part, where God gives us the ability to say yes to the call, is called Justifying Grace. And the gifts to sustain the relationship is called Sanctifying Grace. We will be hearing more about Justifying and Sanctifying Grace later. But I have the honor of sharing the good news about Prevenient Grace. Write this down please. Prevenient Grace is grace that comes before. In other words, there is a gap between humanity and God. For shorthand we call this gap, this falleness from right relationship with God, sin. And the only way we can overcome this gap- the only way we can conquer sin, the only way is through God's grace. Grace is a pre-condition. Grace must happen before the relationship can go on. It is prevenient.

God loves us enough to seek us out.

“I once was lost, but now I am found.”

How was I found? Because God sought me out, that's how. God wooed me. God began courting me from before I was even born. You know, I got a some help from a colleague for this message. She offered suggestions about how I could take theological mumbo-jumbo and make it real through example. So she suggested that I think about how I might have wooed my wife Ann and then compare that to how God woos us. Well the thick headed, slow thinking fool that I can sometimes be thought, well, thats not going to work. I never wooed Ann, we just sort of happened. About 8 years ago, the summer after I went AWOL from the Navy, we started hanging out. We had common friends and it seemed like we always happened to end up at the same places. And then at the end of the summer I said something like, will you go out with me? And Ann said, we already go out all the time- where did you have in mind? No, I mean will you go out with me? She said, well sure. This was amazing. And it didn't take long for me to think, that was a pretty good idea on my part. And then at the end of the year when I was arrested for going AWOL and after a month of being in the brig was finally given visiting rights- Ann brought me homemade spinach calzones. Let me tell you, there is nothing in this world that tastes better than a spinach calzone with a flaky crust and a sweet tomato sauce, and roasted garlic and mushrooms, made with love for a Vegetarian living on bland bread and mushy peas in the brig. Now it was right about this time in my thoughts, as I was preparing my notes, that it occurred to me what I had been missing in the facts of the events. Ann wooed me. I had been wooed and didn't even know it. Here I thought that that I was going along just fine, not having a care in the world and things were happening by my great impulsive decisions and instead, Ann had been wooing me all the time. She had her sites set on me for reasons that only she knows and she wooed me. It was no accident that we were our mutual friends called us both. Nope. Ann had said, on occasion, let's call Karl and see if he will come out. She used other people to help in her wooing me. She waited patiently for me to come to the idea that I should ask her if we could deepen our relationship. And it took an unfortunate incident- something that I was certain no good could out of, for Ann to have the opportunity to demonstrate her love in the shape of a homemade calzone. And it only took me about eight years to figure this out.

This is a little like the love behind prevenient grace. God calls us. God puts us in situations where, if we but open our eyes, we can see God right before us. God uses other people to invite us into relationship, to be Jesus for us. God draws us in close, with the fruits of God's love. And here is the part to write really big on your paper. God empowers us. God empowers through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Now, there are two symbols for the Holy Spirit that are used in the Holy Scriptures. The first is that of a dove. The dove has always been a symbol of freedom and of peace. Therefore, it makes sense that the Holy Spirit, the agent of the only true and lasting freedom and the source of the only true and lasting freedom be depicted as a dove. But there is another description of the Holy Spirit that is just as prevelant, but not mentioned as often in our prayers and liturgies. And that is fire. We read in the book of Acts of how the Holy Spirit descended upon the first disciples like tongues of flame. And this is the image that we cannot lose. This is the image that we cannot ignore. Nikos Kazinakis put it like this... “The Spirit is fire...(that) clamps its talons int the very crown of saints, martyrs, and great strugglers, reducing them to ashes...Wake the fire! That is (our) duty. This is how we collaborate with God.”

Think about fire for a second. That is what the Holy Spirit is like. Think about the recent fires in California. The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit is somewhat like this. Like a powerful force changing the entire forest as well as the individual trees. Think about a raging prairie fire as it uncontrollably spreads with amazing quickness and completeness. Its awesome isn't it. I think that this is why we hesitate to use fire in our prayers and liturgies. It is too awesome to think about. It is out of our control. There are no four words that we can't bear to hear more than 'out of our control.' There is nothing that fire touches that it doesn't transform. Hear where I am getting? There is nothing that the Holy Spirit touches that it doesn't transform. There is nothing that God's grace touches that it doesn't transform. And that is why it was hard for many of us to come this weekend isn't it. Although I didn't recognize and couldn't articulate it until after my weekend, I was a hesitant to come. I had my excuses about work that needed to be done and whatnot. But the reality is I was afraid of the fire that I sensed that I would encounter. Most of us don't really want our lives changed. We want our lives to stay just as they are. To stay right here in our oblivious comfort thank you very much rather than becoming martyrs, or worse yet, saints. We want to keep the blinders on to be shielded from the power of the flame, the intense light of God's Amazing grace.

But there comes a time sisters and you two brothers when a strange stirring comes creeping into our hearts. A desire, a longing for life, and for life abundantly. If someone has felt this stirring say Amen. Wesley called it prevenient grace. The Grace that comes in and changes who we are from the very core of our being on out. Once we allow this grace to come in, God uses it to make us, to fashion us, to mold us into perfect vessals for Christ's love. Once we allow this grace to come in, our blinders are blown of.

“I was blind, but now I see.” Amen?

This prevenient grace causes our priorities to be reshaped. We see the full humanity in our fellow sisters and brothers and we see the imago dei, the image of God in each of them and in ourselves. We look for the grace that is contained in moments of crisis, moments of tragedy, earthquakes, floods, and personal losses. Events that would have broken us before, are now causes for renewed strength. When we allow God's prevenient grace to reshape us, we are beginning a road where our desires change. Where we offer ourselves in grateful service, not out of obligation or duty, but because we recognize that the more we give, the more we truly receive, Amen? We continue down a path were it is no longer a burden to answer God's call, but our one and only desire.

The scriptures describe it like this.

“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the house where they were sitting and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were filled with the Holy Ghost.” Amen?

Sisters and brothers, and I daresay I need to be preaching to myself- but hear this – the time is fast approaching when we need to say yes completely and fully to Jesus Christ. The time is fast approaching when we need to yell out to God set me on fire. I am so tired of compromising. I am so tired of lukewarm living. The time is fast approaching when we need to fish or cut bait. If you feel like you aren't there and you need to pray on it- pray on it. But do not use prayer as an excuse for procrastination. The real beauty of this time set aside in our normal week is that the normal cares and distractions of the world are set aside. So use this time to the fullest. As you continue on this journey, this road to Emmaus, use it as a time of listening and a time of responding to what you hear when you do listen. Use it a time to open yourself to the possibility of leaving an unfulfilled you behind and going out as a new that has life and has it abundantly.

Sermon 10-9

Philippians 4:1-9 & Matthew 21:1

As this week's events unfolded, I found myself returning to a prayer that the Trappist monk Thomas Merton offered after the dropping of the first atomic bomb.

“Lord, mercifully hear this prayer which rises to you from the tumult and desperation of a world in which you seem to have forgotten, in which your name is not invoked in love, your laws derided, your presence ignored”

As we are still coordinating our responses to the two hurricanes that came from the Gulf Coast, we hear more horrific news this week. On Wednesday, almost 2000 people were buried in mud from landslides caused by excessive rain in Guadalajara. There were so many people buried so deep in the mud that the government is considering not retrieving the bodies and just calling it a mass grave. Yesterday, 18,000 people where killed in an earthquake in Pakistan, with another 40,000 injured. And then you put on top of this family bickerings, that are all the more painful because you feel guilty for worrying about the petty in the midst of such great tragedies. And it seems like so many in our immediate circle of friends are suffering as well. It seems like too much. And then, when your personal dreams and aspirations are thwarted by unforseen circumstances and you feel like you are just spinning your wheels, well, its hard. In fact, one wouldn't sound crazy for saying that it seems like we must have been abandoned by God.

Now this is where the discipline part of the relationship between us and God comes in. These are the times when we really need to blow the dust off of our Bibles, remove it from its special place in our house and bring it to our reading chair, and crack it open. And I believe that it helps if you have a plan going into it. By the nature of my vocation as a minister, my Bible reading plan generally revolves around the weekly common lectionary- the texts determined by an ecumenical council that would be read in the mainline churches.

And what did I read? If you find it helpful to follow along, we will be mostly looking at Philippians 4 starting with verse 4. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”

Well, that is not exactly the words that were on my lips, God. And if you will excuse me the contrary spirit, I think I need a little more convincing. Rejoice in the Lord always indeed.
And then, what came next?

5”Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.”

Now, if I were an organized preacher like Pastor Monica up the road, I would have known months ago that a focus on the theme “God is closer than you think” would go great with the text, “The Lord is near”. But I am not an organized preacher, so my sermons are worked on and prayed on the week before I come before with what God has put on my heart. The Lord is near. Well that just my knocked my socks off.

Hear what Martin Luther King Jr. had to say about this passage.
“Not only is there a God; he is near. He will neither forget nor forsake you. Only be gentle to all, and let God care for you; leave it to him how he is to support and protect you. Has he given you Christ the eternal treasure?... With him is much more than anyone can take from you.... [Y]ou possess in Christ more than is represented in all this world's goods. On this subject the psalmist says (Ps. 55:22): "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and he will sustain you," and Peter (I Pet. 5:7), "Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you." And Christ in the sixth chapter of Matthew points us to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. The thought of these passages is the same as the Lord is near.

Now follows, [in verse 6] Do not worry about anything.

Take no thought for yourselves. Let God care for you. The one you now acknowledge is able to provide for you.... So let the whole world grasp, and deal unrighteously: you shall have enough. You shall not die of hunger or cold unless someone shall have deprived you of the God who cares for you. But who shall take him from you? How can you lose him unless you yourself let him go? We have a Father and Protector who holds in his hands all things, even those who, with all their possessions, would rob or injure us. Our duty is to rejoice always in God and be gentle toward all.... It should be our anxiety not to be anxious, to rejoice in God alone and to be kind to everyone.

(Source: Martin Luther, Sermons, vol. 6, pp. 93-112. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983.)

Let us take a step back and remember where Paul is when he writes this letter to the Philippians. He was in prison. Not a cushy country club prison like where we can expect Kenneth Lay to end up. No, Paul was in serious Roman prison. That meant that any day could be his last. It was a very real possibility that in the middle of writing this letter, he would be interrupted to be fed to a starving lion. Think about it. What would a 'normal person's' state of mind be in such circumstances? What would yours be? If we skip ahead to verse 11, we see that he is at peace. He tells us, “I have learned to be content with whatever I have. 12I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty.”
I'll be honest, because if church is anything, it is a place of accountability. That would not be my reaction if I were in Paul's shoes. I would be raving about the government, “Can you believe this Caesar who unjustly imprisoned me?” I would be calling on every last friend and acquaintance to get me out of that prison and I would be praying the prayer that I started this sermon with. “God, where are you?” But the fact of the matter is, is that Paul is demonstrating what it means to be a true witness to Christ, or to use the Greek term, he is a martyr, an example who we look at and say, wow, I want the peace that he has. A man who gives us those comforting words, hey, God is closer than you think.

So, lets look for this peace that Paul has. What kind of peace is it? Is it the peace that comes from having all obstacles, trials and tribulations cleared from your path. No, in John 16:33, Jesus says “33 I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!’”. You know, Adolf Hitler said that he wanted peace. And I believe him. His means to peace was to eliminate conflict. He reasoned that if he killed all of the Jews, Gypsys, homosexuals, Catholics, and anyone that didn't like the way he ran things, that there would be peace. No enemies equals peace. And this type of thinking is pervasive in the world today. The definition of peace and freedom that the world holds is to hunt down and destroy your enemies one by one. Jesus the Christ was not crucified because he preached peace and love. The Romans and the temple authorities had nothing against peace and love. He was killed because he exposed that what the world calls peace is just another face of evil.

No, we read of a different peace in the Bible. We read of a peace that is not determined by outside forces. Rather, peace is nothing more or less than being in right relationship with God. Ghandi summarized his ethics like this, “be the change you want to see.” In other words, don't focus on what others need to be doing or not doing. Focus on perfecting your own righteousness. Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a wedding banquet that we are all invited to. In fact he goes out of his way to say that both good and bad were invited. But there is a dress code. In baptism, we were given a robe of righteousness. And we had best wear it lest we find ourselves speechless before the king and he says to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 14For many are called, but few are chosen.’

“Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown,” as Paul puts it, how can we be a part of the few who find peace- The peace that Paul is sharing with the Philippians?

“Stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.”

If your still with me look at verses two and three. “Be of the same mind in the lord.” Be in harmonious community in the lord. “Be one with God, one with other and one in fellowship with all the earth”, as our communion liturgy says. In other words, be church. Help each other as we struggle beside each other in the work of the gospel. And in so doing, our names shall be written in the book of life. We will be at the wedding banquet dressed to the nines.

Well what else? “4Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.”

As we already mentioned, this is hard, but what a burden is lifted when we change our mopiness and exchange it for rejoicing. What a relief when we give our burdens to Jesus and leave nothing but the rejoicing. In case you missed again I say rejoice.

In verse 5, we are reminded that in order to be the change we seek, to be peace, we need to “Let your gentleness be known to everyone.” And somehow connected with that, in the same verse, Paul tells us the “The Lord is near.” If that is not cause for peace, I don't know what is. We are offered such an intimate relationship with the creator of all, the big cheese behind the big bang, that we have no reason to worry about anything. We have been given the gift of prayer and “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving [we can] let our requests be made known to God.

And here is the promise. Here is the good news sisters and brothers. “7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Our hearts and minds will be guarded, protected, shielded and we will be at peace. Amen? Part of peace is a purity of mind. Part of peace is is praying unceasingly so that there is room for God and God alone. “ 8Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” In a nutshell “9Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in [the example of Paul], and the God of peace will be with you.” Closer than you think!

This is a tall order. Being peace and having peace are quite counter cultural in a world that depends upon, that thrives upon, and has known no other way of operating except by war. Being peace in the face of natural disasters takes a strong will and faith and reliance on the goodness of God. But here is my last bit of good news. If you get nothing else from this time together here this morning, in fact, if I get nothing else from the time spent in prayer and study and writing and preaching this week it should be this. In fact, there just may be a Bible Bee next week with this as the answer, so you might even want to write this down.

Philippians 4:13. If you know it or have it open in front of you, say it like you mean it with me.

13I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Amen?