1st Sunday after Easter

There is a bluegrass song, popularized by Jim and Jesse in the 50's, and Jack Kelly, Jim Wolber and Banjo Bob in 2005 called Y'all Come. It would make a great theme song for the church. It starts off

When you live in the country everybody is your neighbor
On this one thing you can rely
They'll all come to see you and never ever leave you
Saying y'all come to see us by and by
Y'all come (y'all come) y'all come (y'all come) y'all come to see us when you can
Y'all come (y'all come) y'all come (y'all come) y'all come to see us now and then

When the Pharisees asked Jesus, who is our neighbor, he replied, by way of a story about a good Samaritan,

everybody is your neighbor
On this one thing you can rely

Later in his ministry here on earth, he was asked who can come to the banquet? We saw him eat with sinners and tax collectors by the dozen
And right after dinner they ain't looking any thinner
And here's what you could hear Him say
Y'all come (y'all come)...

Well, liturgically, in the life of the church, we are in the third verse.

Now grandma's a wishing they'd come out to the kitchen
And help her do the dishes right away
But they all start a leavin' grandma's a grievin' you can hear my grandma say
Y'all come (y'all come)...
Oh y'all come to see us now and then

Last Sunday, here at the church, we had a party, didn't we? Somebody say Amen. We had friends and relatives that we haven't seen ages come and join us for the awesome event- To come and see nothing - the empty tomb. People came from states around to join us the celebration of the resurrection of our Lord. Which is great. That is part of what we are here for. But, not surprisingly, only about half of us are here this week.

Last week, we were let in on the most important event in human history. We were able to share in the awe and majesty of the conquering of death... To participate in a story created before the beginning of time. A chance to sit back and marvel, and receive the awesome gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to get a foretaste of the feast of the heavenly banquet.

But this week, this week, the savior comes back- not to treat us to another service of celebration, another cause for a holiday to get dressed in our finest and eat and exchange gifts, but to tell us to get to work.

And now we're a wishing they'd come out to the kitchen
And help us do the dishes right away

Please turn with me to the 21st vs in the 20th chapter we read
21Jesus said to them again, 'Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.'

Jesus did not come back just to say hi. No, he come back to say, I have done my part to bring the Kingdom of God on earth, now it is your turn. The Father has sent me to redeem creation and I have done it. And just as he sent me, so I send you. We can imagine Jesus reminding us, hey, remember when Judas asked me a couple weeks ago 'Why was the perfume that Mary anointed me with not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?' and I told you that "8You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me." Well, now is the time to do unto the least of these. The time of feasting and relationship building, when I was in human form, is ended. Now is the time to feed my sheep. Now is the time to care for the poor that, in this fallen world, are always with us.

Again, vs. 22

22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'

This is a serious weight of responsibility. It is little wonder that our numbers have dwindled.

3If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'

"Easter is not just coming to a wonderful, inspiring worship service, it is being sent back into the (hostile) world, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to bear witness to the identity of God as revealed in Jesus." http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/john20x19e2.htm

So is this kind of a drag? Kind of like when you go out to eat with ten people and the bill is hundred dollars and each person gives you ten bucks to cover their portion and you are left with paying the $7 tax and the $20 tip. Did we stick around too long at the banquet and get stuck with the bill? Maybe it isn't so great to be given the responsibility of saving the world, of being responsible for feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, comforting the sick and binding and loosing sins.

But let us look at the promise of the text once again. Look at vs. 19, vs 21, and vs. 26. "Peace be with you." Some translations say, "My peace, I give to you." What do we get for lingering and doing the work of Christ? Not just the great story of Easter, but nothing less than genuine peace. If you could use a little more peace in your life, please say "Amen". In this text and throughout Scripture, we are promised this peace. True peace. Lasting peace. Deep peace that is not simply the absence of war and strife, but is in itself something to behold. The kind of peace that can only come from the source, from the Prince of Peace Himself, Jesus Christ.

Is it unfair to think that to whom much is given, much will be expected? I don't think so. Besides, when we are truly in ministry, and it is truly inspired with the breath of the Holy Spirit and infused with Christ's peace, there is wonder in the work and great joy in the harvest.

That is why we are

a grievin' when they all start a leavin'

Not because we are bummed that we are left with all the work. But because we know what a gift the work and the peace that comes with it is. If we truly love our neighbors, we want to get them in on the action too. We want them to receive this peace. And so we sing out with whatever voice we have...

Y'all come (y'all come) y'all come (y'all come) y'all come to see us when you can
Y'all come (y'all come) y'all come (y'all come) y'all come to see us now and then

Palm Sunday sermon

On the board outside of our church is the message “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord”. Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord. The message of John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea. ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’“...Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
We are one week away from the most important day in the church year. The most important day because it points to the most important day in history- the day which some theologians believe that time itself began. Easter. The day when God chose to redeem God's people. The people of Israel had been awaiting for this day for a long time. A day when the Messiah would loosen their chains of oppression and they would be able to once again live in freedom. And that is what today is about, isn't it. On Palm Sunday, we identify ourselves with the people of Jerusalem on the cusp of our liberation. It might be a little challenging for us. Most of us do not feel oppressed in the same political sense that the Jews did under Roman occupation. But all of us have plenty to be liberated from nonetheless. Amen? Our fears of natural disasters, terrorists, and our rapidly failing economy. The broken relationships that all of us seem to have in our lives. The toils that wear down our bodies. The anguish of watching loved ones slip away. We have plenty to be liberated. Our doubts about our faith, our beliefs, even who we really are and why we are here. O God, why do you tarry so long?

We hunger for liberation from all these things and more so we wave our branches and say “Hosanna in the Highest! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” And this is a good thing. We throw our branches down and allow ourselves to be led by children because we are told that they are closer to God and we must become like them to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. We share in their enthusiasm. We share in their uninhibited shouts of “Hallelujah!” and “Praise Ye the Lord!” because we want to be delivered from our adult complacency. And this is a good thing. Yes, on this Palm Sunday, we can relate with the people of Jerusalem.

But Sisters and Brothers, there is danger ahead. The Kingdom of Heaven is indeed coming near. But are we prepared to repent? A lot will happen between this Sunday and next, between our initial recognition of who Jesus may be and who Jesus actually is. The race is long, but we must run in such a way as to get the prize.

John the Baptist tells us to repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near. The people of Jerusalem were prepared to celebrate as they looked upon the Messiah. But they were not prepared to do the hard work of rooting the deepest evil out from their hearts as they looked upon themselves. As Jesus rode in his donkey, fulfilling the prophecy of the Messiah coming in and kicking butt, the people were all in praise and adoration, ready to ride the wave of victory. We all want to be on the winning side. But when Jesus was sentenced to death, when following him might have meant your own death, enthusiasm waned quickly.

I wonder if our commitment to stand with the losers, the poor, the prisoner, and yes Jesus on the way to die on the cross will be stronger? Sisters and Brothers, there is a hard week ahead. The religious leaders, the people whose whole lives were dedicated to interpreting the word of the God and trying to do God's will. Surely we would have stood up for Jesus. Surely the religious leaders would have recognized the Messiah. But no, history tells a different story. I wonder if we more often than not see the presence of God as a threat, because we know that it will mean great change to what we are comfortable with? I wonder if we are afraid to repent, because it may just let God out of the box and into our hearts? You know what happens when God gets into our hearts, don't you? When God gets into our hearts, God asks us to change. When your asked to change, that means there must have been something wrong with you. Who likes to be told that there is something wrong with them? I don't and I am sure that you don't either. We don't like to be asked to be changed, even by God, because it is so much nicer to be told, I'm O.K. Your O.K. Everything is O.K. Isn't that nice? But we know that that is not the case, I am not O.K. and it is my solemn duty to tell you that you are not O.K. And that hurts yours and mine pride. But there is a reason why pride is the greatest of the deadly sins. Pride is the opposite of love and love is life. We need to squelch that pride. We need to be of “the same mind ... that was in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, ⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.” We find ourselves in human form like Jesus and Jesus “being found in human form, ⁸humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.”

Sisters and Brothers, lets not make asses of ourselves, waving our palm branches and singing yeah Jesus and then go home and forget all about it. Instead, let us be vigilint this Holy Week. Amen? If you can't join us here, than I pray to God that you can somewhere else. If you can't get somewhere else, I pray that you spend the week in prayer and fasting, reading each of the four Gospel accounts. If you can't find the hours to do that, I pray that you somehow get right with God. Let's not be Judas' and put our own agenda above God's. Instead, let us empty ourselves, so that we have room for nothing but God's will, Amen? Let's not be Peter’s and deny Christ. Instead, let each of us shout it from the mountain tops. Amen? Our neighbor's should be asking each, what is all that noise coming from. I think its those Methodists. Let's not be Thomas' and give our ear to Satan's whispers of doubt. Instead, let us boldly proclaim even the mysteries of faith. Amen?

The Lord be with you...

Selah! (Whatever that means)

So far, there are 5 of us going to see Michael W. Smith
w/ Selah & Watermark event, taking place Sunday, April 24, 6 pm
at the Peoria Civic Ctr., 201 S. W. Jefferson St., Peoria,
If you want to join us, call me.

why bother

i have been spending a fair amount of time this week wondering how Lazarus died the second time- or if he is still around for that matter. i recently reread and rewatched Kazantzakis' 'last temptation of Christ' in which Lazarus is killed by Saul (later known as Paul) for political reasons. I also came across this interesting little piece on the topic by john kavenaugh http://liturgy.slu.edu/5LentA031305/theword_embodied.html

"I wonder how it was when Lazarus died for the second time. Were Mary and Martha there?... Of what did Lazarus eventually die? Was it a recurrence of the original affliction or something unforeseen? Did Mary and Martha, the second time around, think that Jesus could spare Lazarus anew?"

it is a fascinating question, but ultimately, it will not bring life to our church. so, i can't help but wonder why God has put this on my heart as the focus of my thoughts this week. well, i am afraid that it is becoming clearer to me. i think that i had to work through this hypothetical in order to see what was underneath it- namely, this nagging 'why bother?' that continuously lingers. i think that i am missing some of the wonder of the miracles because i am stuck in a 'why bother?' glut. a person was blind 2000 years ago and then they could see. they died sometime later and that was that. lazurus was raised from the dead. but surely he could not have lived much longer, so why bother in the first place?

parallel to this 'why bother?' about Lazarus has been a rather annoying refrain from a cantata that we have been practicing. 'he gladdened each neighborhood- helping wherever he could'. never mind that the first part is biblically wrong (he was chased out of galilee, when he cast legion into the swine the pig owners weren't too happy, and i doubt the money changers were 'gladdened' by his visit). the second part 'helping wherever he could' gets to me. Jesus is God. surely, 'wherever he could' would be a large area. but we only hear about select miracles. for example, Lazarus is the only one raised from the dead.

this, of course, is flawed and unfaithful logic. the 'why bother?' obviously cannot be found in the particular miracle. rather, the particular points to the larger issue, that is, glimpses of God's promise. its not so much that Lazarus himself was raised (though i am sure Lazarus himself thought that that alone was enough), but it is the larger promise that such raising represents. the blind man can now see so that God could show God's BIG plan.

this, of course, is the approach that i am going to take for saturday and sunday's sermons. i am (hopefully) not going to get bogged down in what happened to Lazarus, which Mary is mentioned, the archeology relating to the valley of dry bones. rather, i believe that God has refined these banalaties out of me this week, so that i could focus on the good stuff this weekend. God's promise for salvation, the resurrection of our bodies and souls, the breath of life back into the church.

greedy sermon

“Well, I've been thinking about how to talk about greed.

Yes, I've been thinking about how to talk about greed...

Greed is a strain of the American dream

Having more than you need is the essential theme

Everybody wanting more than they need to survive

Is a perfect indication, greed has settled inside

Maybe you don't really know just what I mean

Maybe you don't want to know about your and my greed

You may wonder whether you're infected by greed

If you have to ask, then the scriptures you need

Greed is sneaky, and hard to detect in myself

I see it so clearly in everybody else

I can see it you

You can see it me...

I can see it in my neighbor

it really shows up clearly

You, and you and your greed.”

These words by Sweet Honey in the Rock get at the perniciousness of gluttony and greed. It is such a slippery concept. How much is too much. I can go to someone's house and see a 41' T.V. screen with 1300 channels and ask myself, is that really necessary? Isn't that a bit gluttonous. And then when you come to my house and see my 400 gig hard drive and AMD64 processor, you might think to yourself, either he is trying to send someone to the moon with his computer, or he just is a glutton for processing power. We are pretty good at seeing each other's greed, and horrible at seeing our own.

I say pretty good, because I think that it is getting harder and harder to recognize greed in this time and place. We are not programed to recognize it. A Stanford study suggests that we receive more information in 1 day, than someone in the middle ages would have received in their lifetime. And what is this information? Buy, buy, buy. We are creatures of habit. I would argue that we are what we do. My Grandma listened to hymns constantly. I truly believe that over the decades, those hymns shaped her character in a different than if she had listened to Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken all day. Likewise, many of us teach or kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews how to pray. When we see them marveling over a bird, we put in a plug for God's great creation. But again, I believe there is strength in numbers. What you do over time shapes you. Consider these facts, available at the Presbyterian's website...

Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900

1. Hours per year the average American Youth watches TV: 1500

2. Minutes per week that the average American child ages 2-11 watches TV: 1,197

3. Minutes per week that parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 38.5

4. Percentage of children ages 5-17 who have a TV in their bedroom: 52

5. Percentage of children ages 4-6 who, when asked to choose between watching TV or spending time with their fathers, preferred TV: 54

^{Number of TV commercials seen each year by an average child: 30,000}

1. Number of TV commercials seen by the average American by age 65: 2,000,000

2. Percent of Americans who believe "most of us buy and consume far more than we need": 82

3. Number of ads aired for "junk-food" during four hours of Saturday morning cartoons: 202

4. Percentage of American children ages 6-11 who were seriously overweight in 1963: 4.5

5. Percentage of American children ages 6-11 who were seriously overweight in 1993: 14

Children spend about 28 hours per week watching television. Over the course of a year, this is twice as much time as they spend in school. ²⁵

CUE: Rise

Rise in per capita consumption in the U.S. since 1970: 62%

CUE: Happy

Share of Americans reporting that they were "very happy" is no greater now

than it was in 1957.

CUE: Black

We consume more and are less happy. We are bound to catch up with this reality sooner or later. Right?

Well? Madison Ave. psychology about the links between consumption and happiness are catching up to what the scriptures have been telling us all along. And it is not good news for us. In the olden days of advertising, if you wanted to sell beer, you would show people having fun while drinking beer. In more recent beer ads, the common theme is a group of guys drinking beer, enter unobtainable beautiful woman, something wacky happens- maybe he says a corny pick up line or maybe he mistakes her suggestive wink as being directed at him instead of someone or something else. In the end, the guy does not get the girl. The guy does not get the girl. Have the experts in the ad industry lost their mind? How does failure, rejection and embarrassment sell product. No, they haven't lost their minds. The discovery that they are playing on is that discontentment and gluttony go hand in hand. The source of gluttony is greed and the source of greed is discontentment. Ironically, not only does having a lot of stuff not make you happier, it makes you even more discontented, more desperate to find your next fix. Which leads you into more consumption and then more discontent, until you become less and less a human being filled with the imago dei, the image of God, and more and more a consumer. We are a nation of haves and have nots and all of us are discontent.

While the wealthiest individuals count their assets in the tens of billions, the lowest classes are falling. Americans’ earnings are more unequal today than they have been any time in the past 60 years. This is evidence of gluttonous behavior

Medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas said of Greed: "it is a sin directly against one's neighbor, since one man cannot over-abound in external riches, without another man lacking them... it is a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, inasmuch as man contemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things." (2, 118, ad 1)

CUE: JAMES

The book of James says, "What causes wars, and what causes fighting among you? Is it not your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have; so you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions (4:1-3)."

CUE: BLACK

Long before Sinai and the giving to Moses of the Law, there was Noah and the seven laws or mishpathim that are presented, one by one, incident by incident, in the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis. Known as The Seven Laws of Noah, they were the governing principles of Judaism before the Ten Commandments, and sketched in the first parameters of Jewish moral and religious thought.

In order of their biblical occurrence, the first of these seven mishpathim is blasphemy; the second is idolatry; the third, theft; the fourth, murder; the fifth, illicit sex; the sixth false witness or duplicity in adjudication; and the last, the eating of flesh torn from a living beast. Many rabbis came in time to teach that theft was the greatest, because all the others come from it: To commit adultery is to steal another’s partner. To blaspheme is to steal the name of G-d for human purposes. To commit murder is to steal another’s life, etc., etc. And theft comes out of greed.

CUE: GREED

When you live in a capitalist culture, one that holds as a central principle that people are greedy, and if they were to stop, life as we know it may collapse- it is easy to come up here and rant and rave about how far gone we are- how hopelessly mired in the sins of gluttony and greed we are. It is an easy case to make, and I suspect that all of us could make it equally as well in our own ways.

CUE: BLACK

But that is not why we are here this evening. For us, Lent is the time to recant our sins, to look inward, and then to look toward God to see how we might better do God's will. So is it our job to take on the world, to point our fingers in contempt and disgust. If it is, it is only a small part of what we must do. The larger part is to change ourselves.

Can we brazenly face the world and say- enough, I do not want what you are offering? Sadly to say, I do not think that we can. I think that every single one of us here tonight is too enmeshed in our culture to escape. Do we simply give up hope? Do we go home and finish off the Valentine's candy and wash it down with a super-sized chocolate shake?

No, there is hope. It doesn’t come from rejecting the sirens of this world, but from using our finitude to our own advantage. This is what I have been skirting around this whole time. We, as humans, only have so much time. We only have so much time to think certain thoughts, so much time to do certain things, so much time to say certain words, and so much time to spend with one another.

CUE: TIMOTHY SHORT

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment;

for we brought nothing into the world, so that it is certain thata we can take nothing out of it;

but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.

But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

CUE: p177

If we spend our time in prayer. If we pray unceasingly- that is the only way to cure ourselves from gluttony.

sermon 2-20-05

This Easter, we will be accepting new members into the church. For the unbaptized, we will be offering the opportunity to be reborn of the spirit- to be fully accepted into the family of God. For those that are not church members, the opportunity to fully become members of this church family.

But, lest I get charged with false advertising, let me begin with a story.

{Tiger story}

I love this story because it takes the sentimentality and certainty out of the conversion experience. When I read the Bible, it is so easy for my to tsk, tsk those whom Jesus chides. Poor, foolish Nicodemus. Here you are in the presence of Christ, he tells you that you need to be born athenos, which in Greek can mean either from above or again, and you silly man are thinking that it means again and that you need to crawl into your Mother's womb. Poor foolish Nicodemus.

When I read the Bible, and I read the text from Genesis that Deb read for us where God says, 'pick up your things and go' and Abram picks up his things and he goes. When I read this, I like to think that is what I would do.

Well those who saw Pastor Cole preach in Lee Center last week know that the most powerful tool in Satan's arsenal is pride. Pride makes us see ourselves through a rose colored haze- making us reinterpret our sins as virtues and the piety of others as foolishness.

When I read the story of the three men and the tiger, I think to myself- What an idiot that third man was! I think that most of you would agree with me. This is why I love the story. It allows us a refreshingly honest glimpse of ourselves as we truly are. On our best days, we are like Nicodemus. But rarely, if ever, are we like Abraham. By our own will, we will always trust in ourselves. We will always go by our own judgment, our own presuppositions, our own volition. Yes we will always trust ourselves, even over God.

But,

“Ye must be born again.”

Our founding father, John Wesley, tells us

If any doctrines within the whole compass of Christianity may be properly termed fundamental, they are doubtless these two, -- the doctrine of justification, and that of the new birth: The former relating to that great work which God does for us, in forgiving our sins; the latter, to the great work which God does in us, in renewing our fallen nature.

http://gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/sermons/serm-045.stm

Yes, in renewing our fallen nature. In reassessing who we are at the fundamental core of our being. Yes of fully dying and being reborn. In the earliest records of baptism that we have, the candidate for baptism would have never seen one before. So imagine his or her surprise when the priest would literally trip them into a pool, and hold them down until they started to drown. Until they really got the sense that they were about to die.

This is dangerous stuff we are talking about here! Once you go down that road, you may never come back.

But we must go down that road, because there are but two roads, the one that leads to life and the one that leads to death, and we had better choose wisely. We were born to seek life. We receive this life when we are reborn. When we are reborn, we find out who we really are.

“Nicodemus came to Jesus because Nicodemus knew that Jesus knew the answers. However, Nicodemus did not know the questions.” http://www.day1.net/transcript.php?id=225

Nicodemus' questions are all along the lines of 'how could this be?' Jesus knew that the questions that he really wanted answered were, "Who am I? Why was I born? Where do I belong? How can I be at peace with who I am?" These are the kinds of questions which keep one up at night. That make us get out of bed and seek solace somewhere, hopefully in the tent with Jesus. These are the questions that Jesus answers.

Who am I? I am no longer a descendant of Adam, I am no longer fully bound by his sin. Rather, I are given the pure gift of new life through Jesus Christ. I am born from above, born of the wind, born of the spirit. I can't see it, but I can see its effects in our own lives and the lives that we touch. I see the world as it truly, as loved, as so loved by God that God would give God's only begotten son that I should not perish but receive eternal life.

This love is available to all and when we accept this love, an amazing thing happens. We get a piece of that love. We too so love the world that we are willing to give our all. We lose our condemnation of the world, as Jesus did not come to condemn. Where we saw hopeless pain, we now see transformation. Where we saw only our limitations, we now see that we participate in the infinitude of God.

Nikos Kazantzakis preaches that there are three kinds of souls, each with their own prayers.

1. I am a bow in your hands, Lord, draw me, lest I rot.

2. Do not overdraw me, Lord. I shall break.

3. Overdraw me, Lord, and who cares if I break.

(Report to Greco. New York, Touchstone 1975)

This latter is the kind of reckless faith of Father Abraham, the kind of reckless obedience to God's will that our spiritual heir had. This is how people wake up one morning and find themselves in a Leper colony in India, a warehouse in Louisiana, or at the house of a friend who hasn't yet found Jesus.

This latter type of faith is nothing less than the recognition that when we participate in God's plan, we become love itself.

Similar to Nicodemus, we may ask, “How can these things be?” (v. 9). The answer is simple. God loves. Jesus saves. Amen. So be it.

postmodern sermonizing

q: does the world need another blog?
a: no

q: so, what is the purpose of this one?
a: i have been feeling rather constrained by the traditional sermon format. in any given week, i read a couple hundred pages of theology, biblical critisism, news, and devotions and condense it down to a 15 minute sermon. i fear that the density of this approach causes indigestion to the hearers of the word in the congregation. i hope that this blog can serve as an area where, rather than my role being one who emparts 15 minutes of truth, i can take on the more biblical road of one who is journeying with others as we seek God's will for our community.

q: say again
a: this blog is a log of texts read, sites visited, thoughts thougt, and alleys not pursued in the sermon preparation process.