Lost and Found

Readings:
Exodus 32:7-14
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10

Only the lost can be found.

The Israelites, so soon after being liberated and en route to the Promised Land, are already lost, despondent, weary, panicked.

St. Paul, in his letter to Timothy, is a self-described blasphemer, persecutor, a man of violence. And, in all of this, he believes he is right. He is self-righteous in his belief.

The Israelites and Paul are as the one sheep lost in the fold of one hundred. They become lost. And Jesus comes to find them. He will stop at nothing to find them. For there is only one stoplight that never stops searching for the lost.

And we do not become lost in a moment.

It is a gradual process, often occurring outside of our complete notice. Until, our realization finally admits we are beyond familiar ground. We struggle to find hold, to get back to a safe place, but often our bearings are off kilter. But it is within us to decide to come back.

And, when we do, the Father of the Prodigal is waiting with open arms, waiting to welcome us with the fatted calf.

Lest we dare to judge others, Paul admits, we are all “foremost sinners”. Not a one of us is fit to be “holier than thou”. But we are all of us “findable”.

How? When does the saving moment come? Often, as Pastor Johnson recalls, in quiet moments of self-reflection. In the quiet moment, when we realize our sinful nature, we are found.

He points out that he learned on his sabbatical that 70% of those at Church services this past Sunday “almost didn’t come”. And of that 70%, 80% of them felt everyone else was living a life closer to God than themselves. So why did we come?

Because we need a healing that no physician or HMO can administer. We came because we have an anxiety. We came because were battered, because we’re unemployed, because we’re ill, we have special needs, we’re old. We came because we want to go to a place where “everybody knows your name”.

We came because … maybe … just maybe … we’ll find peace.

We venture home because we are welcome there, an old familiar face. And that place is not judgmental on the face of things. It is first, and foremost, welcoming, fervently waiting for and wanting our return.

We come because we need centering, grounding, direction. Pastor Johnson admitted

“Sometimes the Body of Christ is the ONLY compass I’ve got!”

And the Great News is that we will be found!

Receive the Compass of Christ … given for you.

It’s not a compass of judgment or smugness.

It is a compass of redemption, of acceptance and unconditional love.

It is the compass of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th chances, of as many chances as it takes … to get there.

We need that compass in the worst way. We are Paul, the foremost of sinners. We are, as Luther pronounced on his deathbed, “all beggars.”

The very Good News is that no matter who told you don’t belong, you do.

Here, you’re like everybody else.

Here, everybody knows your name.

Here you matter, you are special.

Here, you’re being looked for.

Here, the compass leads you back where the fatted calf and a party await your return.

Welcome home!

Rally Sunday

Today the Youth of Mt. Zion held their annual service in which they witness to their individual and collective experiences at Group Work Camp. This past summer, they traveled to Savannah, Georgia to help the underprivileged there "Renovate" their homes and everyone's lives. Their testimonials were telling and moving. The blog of the entire trip can be viewed at:

http://mtzionlutheranyouth.blogspot.com/

I Must Be in the Front Row

Sermon for Labor Day Sunday, September 2, 2007
Mt. Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church

Hebrews 13:1-8,15-16

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so, some have entertained angels unawares.

Luke 14:7-11

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely. When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor in case one more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this man your seat.’ Then, in disgrace, you will have to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so your host may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humbles themselves will be exalted.

Lay Preacher: Vince Prantil

“I Must Be in the Front Row …”
Bob Euker

I was very fortunate this past year to have been in the presence of an angel … unawares.

His name was Stewart Clark. I only met him two times. The first was at a classroom function in my daughter’s 1st grade classroom. Her teacher was Debbie Clark, Stew’s wife. Stew had attended the festivities.

The second time was at a fundraiser for our kids’ daycare. We were blessed that Deb and Stew joined us on that Friday evening in late March. As often happens when teachers get together, lots of stories got told. Stew mostly sat behind us, careful to allow the teachers their moments. When he did speak, it was to ask whomever he was with about them. My memories are only of a very quiet man.

On Monday next, Stew died very suddenly of a heart attack. That Saturday, Laurna and I attended the funeral. Only then, did I learn about the man who sat behind all of us on Friday evening.

Stew was the CEO of DigiCorp in Milwaukee. He played guitar at the Community United Methodist Church in Elm Grove where he was instrumental in creating their contemporary service. Testimonials by family, friends, and colleagues told the story of a caring brother, a successful businessman, a dynamic and Christian leader, a gifted musician, a wonderful father and husband, a humble servant. His stories were about a man who was content with his place in the grand scheme of things, and, without fanfare, seemed at peace with who God intended him to be.

In Rembrandt’s painting Night Watch, he chose to use whispers of yellow around the edges that naturally guide the eye to the center of the painting where brighter reds, blacks and whites illuminate a Captain and his Lieutenant. Stew’s funeral had me wondering … if we were colors used by the artist, would we, as humans, not seek to be in that place to which all are drawn? Or would we be content to be the subtle, oft not recognized yellows that, without credit or mention, play their part & point the way?

At the Youth Work Camp this summer, Mike Naumann approached Laurna and I one evening. He said he had been approached by a young girl on his work crew. She said, “Mr. Naumann. I know we don’t come here for the credit or for the mention … but it’s just good to know sometimes that it makes a difference.”

I was reminded in that moment:

As human beings, we have many needs, and often, these needs come in conflict with one another.

On the one end, we want to know that our being here, what we do and contribute makes a difference, that, on some level, we matter to the world. At the other end, we have a tugging on us to “do the right thing” … even if that means our good deeds goes seemingly unnoticed, not unlike Rembrandt’s yellow brushstrokes. Some will say that we can do BOTH. But often it is hard to do one well without sacrificing the other.



Rabbi Harold Kushner writes:

“Each human life is like 2 slightly blurred images rather than a single clear one. Much of our lives will be spent in this struggle (between two often conflicting needs) – to close the gap between the longing of the soul and the scolding of the conscience, between the assurance we need that we’re good and the satisfaction that we have mattered … In our quest for significance, we litter the world with our mistakes, more than we bless it with our accomplishments. Our souls are split ….”

We, as humans, live in the continuum between these two places. Jesus, maybe, is warning us to be watchful over our desire to matter, a desire that may lead us to become overly ambitious to make our mark on the world. He warns us that, in trying so hard to make a difference, we can lose our way. We are all in a constant struggle between accepting with humility God’s intended role for us and wanting to make our mark, even if that means we force fit another role onto ourselves.

Today’s text is sometimes referred to as the Parable of the Ambitious Guest.

I’m not so sure Jesus is saying anything at all about where you sit in Church or a daycare fundraiser, for that matter. He was talking about how we each come to understand our spiritual gifts in Christ. From the moment of our conception, God forms us for a high purpose. Perhaps if we are too ambitious with our own goals, we run the risk of not fulfilling that purpose.

The metaphor of “a back seat” is a good one … it illustrates the example of humility lived by Jesus, a humility I came to know only too late in the life of Stewart Clark.

Maurice Boyd, Minister of the 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York once said of ambition:

“We must recognize in ambition just how ambiguous it is. We say of him ‘He’s sooo ambitious’ and of her ‘Problem is, she has no ambition’. Ambition can be a good thing … so we should praise it, but not over much. For in excess, it can become demonic. The dishonesty it can engender has a particular twist to it. Is it good to be ambitious? Well yes … and no. If we are ambitious, we need to be aware of it, to keep it in check and keep it consistent with our personal integrity, morality and dignity.”


God help you if there’s something you want so much, you’ll do anything to get it. It can drive you to do things that you really don’t want to do. In our conflict between knowing what is the right thing to do and wanting to matter, humans can and have exaggerated their virtues, compromised their values, forsaken their integrity, betrayed confidences, abandoned their morality, neglected family and rationalized it all away “for a cause that was deemed worthy”.

Political candidates compromise their values to raise money and gain votes. Salesmen exaggerate the virtues of their wares. Athletes pump performance enhancing drugs. Doctors, lawyers, and businessmen neglect their families in the pursuit of professional and financial success. We often will rationalize away such behavior by saying “that’s the way the world is” … “it’s what ya gotta do”. God must remind us to live a humble life that is based more in the Spirit and less in this Earthly world and its definition of success.

Stew Clark walked in what Thomas a Kempis called “a multitude of peace”. He had Earthly success, but he had no need for you to know what he’d accomplished, no need for “a front row seat”. If we are at peace with who we are, we will be content with a lower place, even the lowest place. If we take the lowest place, we’re only doing what Jesus did. Children of God don’t need to prove who they are to themselves or anyone else.

“The humble walk in a multitude of peace”, not the ruthlessly competitive. The trouble with being inordinately competitive is that eventually it is never enough to have enough. You want to have more than everybody else. And you never can. Carl Jung points out that “chapter one in a young person’s life is their setting out to conquer the world.” After some wisening up “chapter two is their realization that the world is not about to be conquered by the likes of them.” Lots of learning going on between Chapters 1 and 2.

In the movie “A Man for All Seasons”, Richard Rich was ambitious for power and to get it he lied. For his perjury, he was rewarded & made Attorney General of Wales. Sir Thomas Moore had earlier told him that he couldn’t handle power, and shouldn’t have it, but that he would make a fine teacher. But Richard didn’t want to teach.

He said “Even if I taught well no one would know it”.

Sir Thomas replied, “Richard, your students would know it; Richard, you would know it … and God would know it”. He thought that was a good audience.

Pastor Johnson has reminded us from this pulpit that God often chooses the humble to be his prophets. He picks them out of the back row where they lie in wait to be called forward to serve their high purpose with very special gifts. God will call us forth when the time is right for us to fulfill our high purpose. And he will not call you because you’re “better than someone else”. Our high purpose doesn’t make us higher than anyone else … …

Like all good parents, God loves his children uniquely, not equally.

Don’t your children vie for your attention, compete with one another to show you how good they can be? And, don’t you, as a parent know that they only have to be themselves to matter? Are there any of your children in “the front row” and others in the back?

Humility, then, requires the strength and wisdom to accept our unique roles in spite of our own desires. We will, in fact, matter MOST when we add to His magnificent tapestry in the way He guides us. And, despite a seemingly human need to matter that leads us to compete, we’re surrounded by more and more evidence that there is a real and true cooperative spirit to the universe.

A physics professor, Eric Mazur, at Harvard University wrote that there are three distinct parts to evolution: mutation, selection, and, only now we are beginning to realize … cooperation. And the patterns we observe in nature owe themselves to individual parts cooperating for the greater good of the whole. In Mazur’s computer model of cell growth, behavior of cancerous tumor cells results from a breakdown in cooperative behavior.

In the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, John Nash unfolds his Nobel Prize winning Nash Equilibrium in the halls (and bars) of Princeton, wherein he states that he and his cohorts, if they are to meet the blond, must do what is best for them individually AND for the group.

“Adam Smith”, he proclaims in a moment of epiphany, “ was wrong!”

So maybe competition alone … or to the extreme, is not the answer.

There is an old Indian saying that goes

“Western man struggles in climbing a mountain because he views the mountain as something to be conquered. He should, rather, become one with the mountain and allow the mountain to raise him up.”

Too often, we view ourselves as “outside of it all” rather than as part of something bigger.

Life is not a zero sum game, in the end. Jesus knew that. He believed we don’t win, ANY ONE of us, until we ALL win. He knows we each have a gift within us that is ours alone, a passion, a longing, a calling at which we were masterfully created to excel. But becoming overly ambitious to a calling that is not our own can undermine our true nature. So Jesus warns us.

“Undertow is extremely strong. Swim with caution.”

The warnings are direct, blunt, to the point, and attention-grabbing. Because the undertow, like ambition, is often more powerful than we are; it is easy to approach it unaware; and be overcome by it in the end. In so doing, the line one crosses is nebulous. It’s foggy, grey, not always clear. And, like the undertow, by the time we realize or admit we are in its strong grasp, it can be a very long and hard road back to a safe place. So a stern warning is not out of line. Think of your own children again. Sometimes it takes the direct message to gets their attention.

Jesus, I think, is only warning us of the dark side of becoming too ambitious.

He might be saying:

“Don’t jump the gun. Take a seat in the back. I have a plan for you. I’ll be calling you.”

“Do you want to matter? The good news is … you already do!”

You matter so much Jesus died for you. You matter so much because you are a child of God. There is no higher purpose than the one God created you for. Revelations reminds us “He has made us all kings and priests”. Just this morning, I turned to my son, Lorin, when he shared something with his sister. I said Lorin “You’re a prince”. He quickly replied, “No, Dad … I’m a King!”

As the Desiderata reminds us:

“If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Be yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding as it should.”

Humility is many things. One element is walking in that “multitude of peace” where you recognize you are a child of that Universe, a child of God and you already make a difference whether anybody knows it or not …

… but, in the end, only those you humbly serve may ever know it,

only those who share your gifts and passions may ever know it,

maybe only you will ever know it

but know this … God, who will choose you out of the back row, will know it.

And Stewart Clark reminded me … that’s still a mighty good audience.

Let it Go, Let it Go, Let it Go

Gospel Reading:
John 20:1-18

Lay Preacher: Robyn McGuire

What’s familiar is what I most want to
And it’s all I know to hang onto
And if we’ve no place to grow
Let it go, let it go, let it go

As Robyn McGuire reminded us this week, we do hang onto a lot of things. Because of our human nature, we tend to “get comfy” with our own individual forms of “the familiar”. We fluff them up, feed them, care for them, nurture them, and, yes, hold onto them. In part, we can allow them to define, at least in part, who we are. That’s not entirely a bad thing, but this week Jesus reminds us that we can hold on too much. He showed us that change is inevitable and we should, if not embrace it, be prepared for it and to accept it. Much transformation requires, first, letting go.

Robyn reminded us of all that we hold onto: our jobs, our pets, our relationships with friends and family, our comfort zone. She associated letting go of at least some of these with the process of grieving, that we grieve whenever we sever a part of ourselves from our being. And that grieving takes many forms unique to our individuality.

Robyn points out how “the questions” asked in the Gospel are thought provoking.

First, Jesus asks us all:

“What are you holding onto?” This question requires self-reflection for all of us to answer. Often our reflections reveal things we would not have imagined. When you examine all that you “hold onto”, you can appreciate, in that light of reflection, how much weight you are carrying by holding on. Is it good? Or only familiar?

The angel asks Mary, “Why are you weeping?” and “For whom are you looking?” When the familiar takes exit and we are face to face with change, sometimes our disorientation will leave us in a daze. We do a double take. As Mary did at the tomb when she realized Jesus was no longer there. When we look at things from a new perspective, it is important then to ask ourselves “What are you looking for?”

In the movie Dead Poets Society, Keating tells his students “Just when you think you know something, you must look at it from a different perspective!” He has them all line up and approach his desk and stand on top of it to SEE what the room looks like from “up there”. Just when you think you know something, approach it from a new light! What a message to hear in the throws of Pastor Johnsons sabbatical. Jesus implores us to not hold onto the familiar for its own sake. He says “Watch. I will make a new thing.”

Mary discovers at the tomb that things have been transformed, made new. The angel asks her why she is weeping. Weeping for change? Because her familiar Jesus is no longer? What growth does not involve some form of transformation? Some leaving of the old and stepping out into the new?

Pastor Johnson returned to Mt. Zion this week. He shared stories of his personal transformation. We witnessed a man embracing the new, self avowed (as described by Krista) that he was “not a looking back kinda guy”. But it might have taken some hindsight to help catalyze the transformation. I only yesterday was privileged to listen to Robyn’s sermon of late July. With it came the message of the journey of a caterpillar to chrysalis to pupa to magnificent butterfly.

She was right. The Easter story transcends Easter. It is a message for other times – even the quiet cool evenings of late July.

She summarized beautifully by quoting Pastor Johnson in a voice reminiscent of the angel at the tomb.

You will not find your old friend here. He has changed. He is , in many respects, not the person you knew before. He has gone on.

“I was called to Mt. Zion. Mt. Zion is my home. I’m glad to have Mt. Zion to come home to. I will return wiser, stronger, with a new fire in my belly. This is already clear. But I caution you – I will not be the same person – physically, mentally or spiritually. I’m not sure exactly what shape that will take, but it will be a spectre of a new person with new ideas and new passions.”

In a lot of ways, who we are owes itself in many ways to who we were. But we need to reflect how much of who we were we will continue to carry around and hold onto. A sabbatical is the time for that sort of reflection. When we recognize that the journey best embraces making a new thing, we can grow into that beautiful butterfly.

I can’t help but hear a collective voice … as we come to terms with the new person Pastor Johnson has become, as the tombstone has been turned away, as the cocoon breaks open, a cloud of witnesses happily says …

“Welcome home”