Why I'm doing the happy dance

I've noticed a tendency to say just enough in a Facebook/Twitter status update to give people ideas. I didn't mean to be cryptic...it just takes a lot more than a line or two to explain what's on my mind. But I posted an update last week that deserves to be expanded on: Alan is doing the happy dance because my church is really a church. What the heck does that mean?

If you've seen the church building, or even pictures of it, you might think it's strange for me to have any doubts. Central Christian is as churchy-looking a church as you could ever hope for: stone walls, steeple, big stained glass windows, high roofs. How could it be anything but a church?

The thing is that a church isn't a building at all. In the New Testament, a church is a group of people--a group of people called together by God to be "the body of Christ." That's a tough phrase to explain, but I think it means that a when you run into a church--a group of people--you should get a glimpse of God working in the world. When you meet a church, you should be able to tell that something incredible is moving within and through them--and that presence of God should cut across all the different human categories: race, style, age, dress, money, class...if you walk into a church, you can be surrounded by people who are nothing like you and find out that you're right at home.

The sad truth is that a lot of the groups of people who meet in impressive religious buildings aren't churches by that definition. And I was pretty sure that my church really was a church, but it was hard to know because "everyone" in my small town has known that Central Christian is a church for the right kind of person ("right" in this case meaning "at the top of the social ladder in Connersville, Indiana). And those prejudices were strong enough that it's taken months before people who were really on the outside came in--people who, if you took a picture of the church, you would be able to pick out of our usual crowd.

Now those people didn't "come in." People don't just come in to a big, impressive, church building. They practically have to be dragged in--not by force, but by a deep and powerful caring. People don't accept that invitation to "come to church" doesn't mean anything unless they already believe that you--the person doing the inviting--really cares about them.

But after that...I watched the people in my church walk up to the strangers who came to see them, smiling, welcoming them, and being genuinely glad that they were there--not because they would add to the church, but just because they wanted to share the joy they felt with another person. They made God's presence known to those visitors, those strangers, who left saying, "I want what those people have." What do we have? Nothing of our own...just God. And so there's one more person today who got a little taste of what God can do, thanks to this church that I've been given the chance to serve.

Sermon Riff: Follow Him

As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, Jesus saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him. (Mark 1:16-20)

What could be more straightforward than this story? Jesus tells people what to do, and they do it. Peter, Andrew, James, and John decide to put all their trust in this wandering holy man, just because he says "follow me." And they do it right away, without debating, delaying, hemming or hawing. They just go.

This is, at the most basic level, a story about what it means to be a Christian. Here at the beginning of the oldest story we have about Jesus, we learn that Jesus calls us to follow him. Being a Christian is, first and foremost, about following Jesus--not just living according to his teachings (which is hard enough), not even living according to his example (which is even harder), but following him on the journey that he took--a journey that led him from life to death and from death to new life.

So naturally, this is one of the passages preachers turn to when they want to tell people, "get off your butts and get moving!" Thousands of sermons have been given reminding us that Peter, Andrew, James and John were not special people, and if they could do it, we can too.

But...Peter, Andrew, James, and John didn't have any idea what they were getting into. Later in the story, when Jesus tells Peter that he's going to end up on the cross, Peter "rebukes" him--corrects his teacher! James and John try to get special seats in heaven. Based on the things that we learn about them in the Bible, it seems like they thought that following Jesus was going to give them a chance to be high muckety-mucks in the "kingdom of God" that Jesus was always going on about--dukes or lords or something like that. They didn't find out about the whole self-sacrifice part of it until later, and they weren't very happy about it when they did.

But Jesus' first disciples certainly had a different kind of faith in Jesus. By all accounts, they were pretty ordinary people without any special skills or remarkable traits. But they believed that Jesus had the power to make them special, to make them remarkable. They didn't just have faith that Jesus had power to do amazing things, but that Jesus had power to make them do amazing things. Even if these uneducated, self-centered fishermen didn't understand what they were getting into, it was pretty clear that they were going to end up doing far more than people like them were supposed to be capable of. They didn't just trust Jesus to lead them. They trusted Jesus to give them what they needed so that they could follow him.

And it worked! They just got up and followed, and in following Jesus, they gained the ability to do things that were totally impossible. Later on, we read that Peter and John healed people—not through their own power, like Jesus did, not by saying, “get up and walk” under their own authority, but in Jesus name, as Jesus’ followers. And when they were arrested and brought before the learned, the judges, the clergy, they spoke up in ways that uneducated fishermen like them weren't supposed to be able to do. Following Jesus turned out to be a lot harder than they ever imagined...but they gained the strength and the power to do those hard things, to work miracles and speak truths that they never could have reached under their own power.

And this is the great invitation that we receive. If we choose to follow Jesus, if we go on that journey with him, we will have to give up things that we hold dear--our reputations, maybe our relationships, perhaps even our lives. But the more we give away the paltry things that we value so much, the more room we give to allow God to fill us with strength, comfort, joy, peace, beyond what we can possibly give ourselves.

EPIC FAIL

This isn't my sermon; I'll post that tomorrow. But since I've been thinking about things I haven't been doing, I thought it made more sense to post this tonight, and celebrate success tomorrow. And that way I'm still committed to getting at least two days in a row on here...

My favorite computer game is Spider Solitaire set to high difficulty. I've been playing for years. It took me months to win a single game. Lately, I've been really excited because I'm winning about 10% of my games. I'm thrilled to be at the point where I only fail 9 out of 10 times.

I've never minded losing games like that--and, in general, I'm pretty comfortable with failures of all kinds. Self-help types will tell you that we have to take risks in order to grow, and that a risk--by definition--will sometimes lead us to fail in the things we're trying to accomplish. And I can see how the lessons from my failed jobs, failed projects, and failed relationships have contributed to my non-failures later on. And for pastors, accepting failure is even more important. I'm supposed to be changing lives, and if I ever get to the point where 10% of the people I meet go away finding that their lives have changed, I'll be totally thrilled.

Lately, I've needed to be comfortable with failure just to make it from day to day. My to-do list--the list of things that I've failed to get done--is huge and not getting shorter. If I went to bed with that failure weighing on me, I wouldn't sleep. Like I haven't touched this blog in 6 weeks, even though I've had all sorts of things I've wanted to say. And I haven't failed to find time for other things--like the Spider solitaire I mentioned earlier. If I hadn't posted a Facebook update demanding that random people hold me accountable (thanks Radegund!), I wouldn't be doing this now.

So there is such a thing as being too comfortable with failure. Sometimes we need to fail in order to learn and grow, but sometimes we just need to reject failure, try harder, and get it done. Lately I've gotten back in touch with some family members who I didn't talk to for about 8 years. They're all wonderful people, I missed them the whole time, but for one reason and another I just never managed to make even a single phone call. I got over it and started talking to some of my cousins...just in time to get a call last week from one, who told me that my aunt--an aunt I used to be close to--was being admitted into hospice. She's suffering from cognitive problems bad enough that she wouldn't benefit from a visit. So, my cousin said, I should just plan to come for the funeral.

I'm never going to talk to my aunt again. I can gain wisdom from this experience, I can talk to my other aunts and close friends, use this experience to teach others, find forgiveness, and decide not to beat myself up about it, but I can't talk to my aunt ever again. I wanted to, but I failed.

Maybe it's because I've led three funerals in three weeks, but I've been acutely aware that failure is failure. Every broken relationship, every wasted hour, every unworthy word and deed--each one uses some time and some energy that we can never get back. And so while we need to be comfortable with failure, we can't be too comfortable--to forgive ourselves, but also to challenge ourselves.

Sermon Riff: Getting in Trouble

Even though this is Inauguration Day, I’m still learning about how to get caught up on blogging. So this is really my riff on the sermon from Sunday, two days later. Anyway, Inauguration Day is going to take a day to process, so you can check in tomorrow.

Of all the civil holidays on our calendar, it’s particularly appropriate that Christian churches celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. King is the only Christian minister who is honored with holiday by our government, and he’s honored for his ministry. King’s life and his social activism was formed by his faith in God. In 1954, before the Civil Rights movement, before the Montgomery bus boycott, when King was just an up-and-coming young preacher, he preached a sermon that included these words:

I'm here to say to you this morning that some things are right and some things are wrong. Eternally so, absolutely so. It's wrong to hate. It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong…no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. Some things in this universe are absolute. The God of the universe has made it so. And so long as adopt this relative attitude toward right and wrong, we're revolting against the very laws of God himself.

That conviction was the basis for King’s work. His belief in equality, in love, in justice, was rooted in his belief in God—God who had established laws of right and wrong that bound all humanity, whether they believed it or not. He confronted human lies with God’s truth through his words, but even more through his actions. King brought about change by forcing the violence, hatred, and lawlessness that had built segregation out of the shadows. He forced the sheriffs to use their clubs in the daylight, and the Klansmen to make their speeches on national television—and when the true nature of segregation was displayed in the open, millions of white Americans were shamed into changing it. All that truth caused trouble, but the truth always does. Jesus was very clear about that, and told his followers that commitment to the truth would always cause trouble:

Count yourself blessed every time someone cuts you down or throws you out, every time someone smears or blackens your name to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and that that person is uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—skip like a lamb, if you like!—for even though they don't like it, I do…and all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company; my preachers and witnesses have always been treated like this. (Luke 6:22-23, The Message)

So if you’re witnessing to Jesus, you’ll get in trouble. And if you’re not getting in trouble, then you’re not witnessing to Jesus. That’s a tough message to hear, because none of us like to get in trouble. But a life of trouble is exactly what we’re called to live, if we’re serious about being followers of Jesus. Of course, that applies to me as much as you...and I hope you'll have a chance to hear about some of the trouble I get into in the months ahead.

Text for the week: Luke 10:1-11

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’

Sermon Riff: Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die

I don't write out my sermons, so I can't post them in a blog. And anyway, I often spend a day or so thinking about what I should have said. So instead of posting a weekly sermon, here's a "sermon riff," a posting that's based on the sermon and the sermon text.

This week I was talking about change. We're starting a new "transformation process" (the consultants who run it won't let you call it a program). These fads and buzzwords come and go, so I had to explain to the church why this wasn't a waste of our time and money. So I wanted to say something about change that you can't find in a management book. And here's what I got:

For the most part, people don't like change. Some do better than others, but change is scary--and the older we get, the scarier it seems to become. Why is that?

Maybe because change always equals loss. When we go through a change, we lose something that we have, and that's always scary and uncomfortable. No matter what good a change brings us, there's always a cost. Change is a trade: we lose something old and receive something new. So change always brings loss. And as we get older, we get closer and closer to the biggest, scariest, and most uncomfortable change of all, when we give up everything we know, our lives, our whole world, and pass into a truly unknowable future. Perhaps our fear of change, deep down, is a fear of death.

I hope this is true, because Jesus has an awful lot to say about our fear of death.
He said, "Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it." He carried that through his actions too--he gave up his job, his home, his family, and eventually his life to serve God and other people. He was afraid--like the song says:

When Judas had betrayed him, his Father heard him cry,
He was brave until his death but he didn't wanna die.

Even Jesus was afraid of death, but he went through it anyway. And what happened? Jesus overcame death. He won the victory. He entered into a kind of life that we can't even begin to understand. He "emptied himself," as an ancient hymn puts it, and was filled with a new, glorious life that goes totally beyond the life that we understand and live. And he left us the promise that what happened to him would happen to us too...that if we faced our fear, if we accepted change, if we gave up the things that we cling to, that we would receive what God has in store for us.

And so the Gospel, the good news of Jesus, tells us that we never have to be afraid of change. The losses are real, but the promise is real too--that God knows more than we do, and that the more we change--the more we lose--the more God can give us. If we can accept that, we will get more than a seminar or a program...we can allow our whole lives will be changed.

Pastor's Column, January 2009

One of the comments I hear most often is, “our church has gotten so busy!” We’ve got an awful lot going on, and the period around Christmas has a particularly full calendar. When we get busy, it’s easy to get caught up in the rush of activities and lose focus on the point of all our business. That’s never a good thing, and it’s especially dangerous in a church, since our work only matters if we keep it connected to our reason for working. None of our services, events, or meetings matter if we don’t keep them focused on God.
This Christmas Eve, we’re focusing on both God and our neighbors. We will be giving our offering for the Christmas Eve service to the Salvation Army. More importantly, we will be posting flyers about the service around the downtown area and the neighborhood, and will specifically invite the families who come to the Lord’s Table on Christmas Eve to join us for worship. Please take a moment to invite your neighbors—friends and strangers both—to our service.
After church on December 28, we’ll be having a special congregational meeting to vote on the appointment of five new elders. This might seem like a dry formality, but I want to lift up the significance of that meeting. In our church, elders are called and ordained. When we ordains a ministers—pastoral ministers or elders—we are saying that we recognize and affirm a gift of God given to specific people to build up the community. And one of the basic principles of our church is that the gift of ministry has to be recognized and affirmed by God’s people. We have all sorts of boards, committees, and individual leaders, but all of those are secondary to the whole people of God. And so this business meeting is a holy time, a moment when we join together to speak the Word of God.
On January 4, the next week, the church will be celebrating our 175th anniversary. We will be learning about and reflecting some of the history of our church, and our celebration will be completed by the ordination of our new elders—a step into the future that will start the next 175 years of our church history. Afterwards, we’ll have a light lunch. All this will give us a chance to consider where we have been and where we are going, to think about the heritage that we are
January 11, the week after that, we’ll be introducing another step into the future. Back in November, the board decided to get involved in a process to help us open up to God’s calling for us, as a church and as individuals. Over the next year, we’ll be working with other Disciples churches in Indiana, regional staff, and an expert in church transformation. A group of church members will be the guides who lead the church through this process, and we’ll be lifting up them and the whole church.
So please take time to be involved in these celebrations, and pray with me that our business doesn’t turn into “busy-ness,” that we continue to do the Lord’s work and not just church work.

Meeting Jesus

Last month I talked about meeting Jesus. This week, I met Jesus.

He didn’t come to meet me in any of the places he’s supposed to be: not on the cross, not in a stained glass window, not in the pages of the Bible, not in communion, not in my heart, not in any of the other places I’ve been told to look for him. No, Jesus walked right into the hall outside the church office. And he didn’t look the way he was supposed to either: no halo, no flowing hair, no flowing white robe, no unwrinkled white skin. No, Jesus was a black man with a clean coat and a huge duffel bag, salt-and-pepper hair cut very short, the smell of a few cigarettes, and a few wearied lines in his face.

I kept him waiting when he came in; I was on a very important phone call. When I was finally ready, I walked out of our locked office (we always keep the office locked, because you can’t be too careful). I went into the hall where he was sitting on an old pew and sat down next to him. He said, “can we talk in private?”

I wasn’t sure, but I took a chance, unlocked the door, and walked in with him. Then it occurred to me that I never talked to people in the hall, and I felt a little guilty. “Sit wherever you like,” I said. He sat down. I did too.

Then he told me that he was trying to get home to Kentucky—a little town I’d never heard of. He called me “brother,” talked about how he prayed and how God took care of him. I didn’t pay much attention because I knew that vagrants always try to impress preachers with a lot of talk about God. He told me how the father at the Catholic church had gotten him a room at the motel, how the Lord had moved a stranger had given him enough money, how a friend was coming to pick him up tomorrow. “So,” he said, “I need a ride to the store and then to the motel.” I waited for him to ask for money. He didn’t.

“You mean you just need a ride?”

“That’s right…and if you could, wait for me to run into a grocery store and buy some food.”

I could do that. So he tossed his bag in my van, got in, and we drove to a store. I made small talk and tried to figure out his angle. Would he tell me that he couldn’t pay at the store? Would he ask for me to pay for another night at the hotel? Was he going to just ask for money? I couldn’t see the plan as I waited. I thought about telling him that I had to go. I’d already gone out of my way to give him a ride, done my good deed for the day. I was going to miss my lunch, and it wasn’t that far to the motel...but when he came out with a little bag of food (I noticed ramen noodles, which are just about the cheapest food you can buy), I felt a little more guilty and kept quiet.

Then he said, “can we stop by the gas station too? I just need one thing.” So I took him to get his pack of cigarettes. Of course, even when he was begging he was still smoking—it figured. “I’ve got 10 minutes,” I told him. I stopped by a pump to wait for a car to pull out of a parking space, and he jumped out right away. I was definitely going to miss lunch now, so I dug in the back of my van and found a brownie. I’d bought it in the morning because I’d missed breakfast. I left late because I’d had to search for pants…I couldn’t fit into the ones I’d picked out, the ones that fit just fine before Thanksgiving. After I bought it I thought that maybe I didn’t need a brownie after all, but now I was missing lunch too, and I had to eat something, didn’t I? So I ate the brownie quickly. I had to shove the last bite in my mouth because he was done in four minutes and jogged back to the van. “Sorry that took so long,” he said.

Then we drove through the cold rain to the motel. It was a lot farther than I remembered. I thought about walking all that way in freezing rain. I thought about how long I’d be able to keep my home if I lost my job. I thought about the brownie I’d eaten, even though it was bad for me. I thought about eating it quickly, before the hungry man next to me noticed. And I remembered the words of judgment that Jesus said he would repeat on the last day:

“I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me.”

And when the judged would ask Jesus, “Lord, when were you a hungry or thirsty or a stranger stranger and we didn’t help you?” he would say

“Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”

Then I knew that I was meeting Jesus, and that I had not welcomed him in. And I felt very, very, guilty.

He didn’t ask for money, but when he wasn’t looking I stuck a bill in his bag. I thought I’d feel better, but I didn’t. Then I remembered something that one of Jesus’ disciples said: “If I give all I possess to the poor but have no love, I gain nothing.” So I pulled out my card.

“Would you do me a favor?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said.

“When you get where you’re going, call me so I know you’re safe. Oh, and if your friend doesn’t come and you’re stuck here longer, let me know.” Then I looked him in the eye, and shook his hand. He smiled. He picked up his bag, his food, and his smokes, and went into the motel.

It’s a good thing for me that Jesus doesn’t hold a grudge. But the next time he shows up, I won’t leave him waiting in the hall.