Mary Did you Know?

Sunday, December 14, 2008
Third Sunday of Advent
Service of Lessons and Carols


Isaiah 40:3-5
Isaiah 11:1-5,10Isaiah 42:6-9
Isaiah 9:1-3
Ephesians 2:11-18
Isaiah 7:13-15
Luke 3:1-6



This week we celebrated the Service of Lessons & Carols. While I was really moved by all the music, there’s a piece that gives me goose bumps, Mary Did You Know.

Mary Did You Know
That your baby boy
Has come to make things new
The child you deliver will soon deliver you

Mary Did You Know
That your baby boy
Would walk where angels trod
And when you kiss that little baby
You have kissed the face of God

Mary Did You Know
That that sleeping child you’re holding is the Great I Am

It begs the question. If we are asking Mary if SHE knew, do we?

Audio music link:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1oHJR2g7Tw

God Logic 101

Sunday, December 7, 2008
Second Sunday of Advent
Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson

Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/292/D847594C-6D00-3C64-4AB8-942879958631.mp3

God’s plan is hard to understand and often difficult to accept. Instead of the flood or the fire, He comes in mercy. Mountains will be leveled, but there will most assuredly be peace after the storm, rough made smooth, crooked made straight.

The world is a cynical place. It invites us and rewards us for dividing up rather than communing. One thing’s for sure:

There’s always someone who doesn’t fit in.

God’s time frame is not ours, clear, but not so simple. To God 1 day is as 1000 of our years. In his book, The Science of God, Gerald Schroeder offers this tantalizing realization from the world of physics. In Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, time scales ar different at high speeds approaching the speed of light, a speed very close to that of the expanding universe at and near the moment of the Big Bang. If you enter the numbers into the equation scaling time, 16 billion of our years (the time since the Big Bang or roughly the age of the universe as we perceive and understand it) is equal to roughly 6 days … the six days of creation?

Wouldn’t it just be fascinating if the relations Einstein imagined were the language of God written in the stars. Someone had to be “just crazy enough to see it”. God is patient with us and wants to wait until as many of as possible get on the right course before He comes again to finally clean things up and make things right.

He is patient because …

He wants everyone on The Ascension Train

… and He’ll wait for everyone, 6 days or 16 billion years, if you will.

God logic doesn’t make sense to us. We’re not about waiting. We’re about justice, and swift, if you don’t mind. I recall a preacher who admonished once:

If what you’re after is justice and not mercy, you’d better not make any mistakes!

Remember, Pastor Johnson reminds us, you find Jesus in the very worst parts of your life. John the Baptist was a weird character yelling out in the wilderness. But sometimes it takes a character to get our attention. And sometime it takes a month to step aside from the anger, the clamoring for retribution, from the vengeance vs. forgiveness. We are not baptized into vengeance, but into mercy.

Out there today it’s very hard in ways that 2 generations have never known. But around the corner, God is waiting patiently to show He is abundant, hopeful, merciful, forgiving.

What’s coming? What’s coming is an abundant, merciful, forgiving baby. The baby of 2nd, 3rd, and 100th chances. The baby comes for broken relationships, fractured families, the ones who don’t fit in. Prepare yourself for that gift, a gift it’s almost impossible to understand.

The Now and the Not Yet

Sunday, November 30, 2008
First Sunday of Advent
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn

Isaiah 64:1-9

1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Mark 13:24-37

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/292/B5C06DA8-8C18-70D6-DD4C-D6D98144EE72.mp3

“I love 2nd chances!” … and so starts the lesson. Don’t we all. In kid’s court, we called it “a do-over”. The color of the season of Advent is blue … for preparation. But like all good things, we don’t quite want to cut to the chase. Like a great meal, you want to savor it, take a deep breath before starting in. Christmas and Advent have a necessary element of waiting that is not passive. It perhaps should not be a waiting for someone to deliver the goods. But rather a “time before”, of preparation for a happening of extreme circumstance.

In the book Changing for Good, the so-called “spiral model of change” is presented: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, and action. In studies, people who reach the preparation stage are 3 times more likely to change their behavior than those who merely contemplate it. Advent is a time to go beyond contemplation to preparation. This preparation is active and takes time.

It takes time to appreciate His coming. Our sense is not one of fear, but rather one of awareness. Much like a baby’s birth, we know what’s coming, we know it’s good beyond measure, and we do need to prepare for what’s about to happen. Pastor Mohn shared that:

Advent is the season of the Now and the Not Yet.

Although the Kingdom of God has arrived in the person of Jesus, all is still not right with the world, not yet. Advent is the reminder of the work we’ve yet to do to get ready for His 2nd coming. Much as with the birth of a child, we all go about the 9 months of preparation differently. We clean, we paint, we hang a quilt from on grandmother, a rocking chair from another. We create a space. Our community creates the space together … to let this child know how special they are, that they’d been anticipated. The time in between now and Christmas is critical and Holy.

The temptation is to be closed off from our family, but this limits the power of the Good News. Advent is a blessing, a time to be aware of the expanded view, to contemplate “the now” and act and prepare while in “the not yet”.

Laughing at a Funeral

Sunday, November 16, 2008
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn

Psalm 41:1-3 1
Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/422/DC940E23-065E-3374-11FC-EE42DC8D2359.mp3

Today’s lesson seems to be speaking about a harsh master, and inequality in his doling out. As we’ve seen more often lately, we have to ask “Where’s the Good News here?”. We are called to take the time and acquire the eyes to see that good news.

Where’s the good news in the hoarding of the single talent. Well, Pastor Mohn puts part of the picture we often don’t see in perspective when she sheds light on the meaning of the word “talent”.

In our Savior's lifetime, a talent was a significant amount of money. A talent was equal to 60 minaes, and a mina was equal to 100 dinarii (pence). A worker might earn one dinarius a day.

So a talent was something on the order of 6000 days pay or 16 years salary! Five talents held the worth of an entire life! Well, this changes one’s perspective … or it can. Pastor Mohn evoked that sense when she challenged us all to view the text from a different angle. If the Master was harsh, was he not also extravagant in what he offered, provided? The Master’s instinct is to give extravagantly, abundantly! And what is expected in return is accountability. We are given each a unique gift. It is our job to discover it and use it as best we can to further The Plan. So let’s not “start with harsh”. God BEGINS with abundant giving. God gives us all LIFE.

Now on to the response. So now that we know the value of a single talent, we know the guy with even the one talent has got a lot to lose! “A lot” renders apprehension, fear, and a feeling of undeservedness. It’s fear that leads the last slave to hide and hoard his keep. Is the Master really harsh? Or is it in our heads “the fear talking”?

The other two slaves “see the opportunity”. They “see it a different way”. Pastor Mohn confesses that “she gets the third guy”. She gets his fear. We can all relate. But we also need to consider why the other two rise above it … why they were not afraid.

Pastor Mohn recently lost her grandmother and attended the funeral in Iowa. As mourners lined up to view the body, Annika, all of 7 months, was wiggling, smiling, and laughing. The scene caused others to break a smile. It was that image: laughing at a funeral that spoke a message. That …

Christians do foolish things, risky things. They take a chance!

They laugh at a funeral.

We all can acknowledge an economic crisis of proportions we have only read about, yet reach in deep and continue to give. We’ve been asked by the Master to dig deep, and to laugh at a funeral. Being asked to give is an invitation from God … to be held accountable for one’s having received in abundance, in extravagance. The request: that we help others smile at a funeral, see the world a different way.

We never deny the crisis or catharsis or The Cross, but we are tasked to live knowing that after, there is always a rainbow, a promise, a deliverance, a life everlasting.

And, if we learn the lesson of the talents, we, too, must “pay it forward” … so the giving never ends.

Mercy Mercy …

Sunday, November 2, 2008
Lay Preacher: Jon Stolz

Revelation 7:9-171

John 3:1-3

Matthew 5:1-12

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/422/395374B5-B143-5377-17F7-9DF65D29F93A.mp3

Today we were privileged to hear lay preacher, Jon Stolz, ponder on the meaning of The Beatitudes. Beatitude … from the Latin, beatis, for “to be blessed”, he reminded us.

I learned only today that the first several beatitudes are about “those who suffer” while the remainder are “about those who help those who suffer”. Reckoning back to a theme from Lent, we are either given a cross to bear or we are, in the absence of one of our own, tasked and challenged to help someone else take up theirs … to be modern day Simons of Cyrene.

Jon proffers that the beatitudes were Jesus’ way of identifying those that were truly blessed. Up until then, they had only The Law, but the Sermon on the Mount outlined a new set of rules, if you will.

Jon added to themes of past sermons by Pastors Johnson and Mohn … that Jesus’ “advice” is not a laundry list of things to do or accomplish to garner points; they were not a neat, little set of instructions for life. Jon offers that they were more a challenge to the status quo and “the mindset of The Law” up until Jesus arrived on the scene.

Jon also pointed to an interesting fact: that Jesus was supposedly seated on the ground when proclaiming the sermon, a common rabbinical practice of teachers. Was he speaking to the disciples alone? Was he addressing the crowd and, if so, could they hear him? Lutheran faith is predicated on knowing we can’t earn our way into eternal life. We are given salvation as a gift. God does ask us to live a life which is humble, penitent, meek and merciful.

Jon then elaborated on the beatitude “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy”


I remember well a powerful sermon I was privileged to experience in which the preacher extolled

“If what you’re after is justice, forget about mercy!”

If we “keep count” as Pastor Mohn preached so very recently, we’re missing the point. Mercy is about giving that up … for good. As Jon points out, mercy is putting aside prejudice, it’s care & concern for even the most undeserving; mercy is God, mercy is a way of living, a daily ritual …

And the world is not lacking in the need for it. The world is full of the broken-hearted, sin, hunger looking fo compassion, justice, a friendly ear. When Jon was growing up a son of a Lutheran pastor, he recalls, there were no organized food drives. When someone in need came knocking, it was at their door and one time he answered. Giving he man a lunch that included a ham sandwich, he was confronted by the man, “What!? No cheese?”. In what he admitted wasa sarcastic comeback, he said to the man, “Sorry, no cheese today”. Beggars can’t be choosers, right?

Well, years later, it appears that sarcasm doesn’t rate on the mercy thermometer. Sometimes, it seems, real hunger can mask one’s gratitude. Mercy, perhaps, means “never having to say ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ “.

Jon wrapped up with a beautiful poetic quote from Edwin Hubbel Chapin, a Universalist minister who wrote hymns, editorials, and poems in the mid-19th century. Fearing he would give in to his propensity toward an acting career, his parents dutifully saw to it to send him to seminary. Perhaps this very act formed the basis of one of his quotes:

“A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star.”

…and, this, on mercy:

Mercy among the virtues is like the moon among the stars,
not so sparkling and vivid as many, but dispensing a calm radiance that hallows the whole. It is a bowl that rests upon the bosom of the cloud when the storm is past. It is the light that hovers above the judgement seat. The quality of mercy is not strained; it drops as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed: it blesses him that gives and him that takes. Mercy is an attitude of God Himself, and Earthly power shows like God’s when mercy seasons justice.

Lest we forget we are fraught with our innate ability, in fact our nature to make mistakes, let us heed the thoughts of Edwin Chapin and Maurice Boyd to be interested “not only injustice, but in mercy” for “the very essence of justice IS mercy”.

Blessed be the merciful …

Unless First a Dream

Sunday, October 26, 2008
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Romans 3:19-28
John 8:31-36


Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/292/0D295D8A-677D-5D7C-41D1-5DA3A50ACA21.mp3

Pastor Mohn began her admittedly short Reformation Sunday sermon with a quote from Thomas Friedman’s “The World is Flat” (a Brief History of the 21st Century). In it Friedman asks

“Does your community have more dreams than memories? Or does it have more memories than dreams?”

Addressing the Confirmands and each of the rest of us somewhat uniquely, Pastor Mohn offered that whle it is important to have a sense of heritage and history and memories, if we place our dreams 2nd to them, we risk a time in the future when we will have no more memories to look back on.

Today, we commemorate that Martin Luther, by either design or accident, changed the world! We look back upon that as a wonderful memory. But Luther wasn’t in the business of memories; he was in the business of dreams.

The start of this sermon brought rife images of students at graduation. Another ritual that is both “an ending wrought with memories” as well as “a new beginning laced with apprehension and hope and dreams for what we can become”. I was reminded that when students return to campus a year or so after graduation, they actually dwell less on “go to the same old watering holes” and conjuring up memories, than they comment of “how they’d like things to work vs. how they actually work”. It is a time of awakening, reckoning with possibility vs. pragmatism. Some end up embracing “the system” and trying to work within it.

As John F. Kennedy might have meant when he said, “Some see the things as they are and say why?” Others embrace finding “the room for a better way”; what Kennedy might have been referring to when he said “I dream things that never were and say why not”. It’s perhaps no great secret that the word dreams is what Kennedy chose to inspire a nation of young people.

We see 18 young hearts before us today venture into that world. Will they see what is or what is not? Only they will discover for themselves. But Pastor Mohn was so gloriously open to possibility when she shared that today’s Confirmands are full of dreams, beautiful dreams. What will the world become? What role will they play in ‘making ti become’? Today is a moment, a snapshot that will, no doubt, become a memory. But what will you do to fulfill your dreams?

Today, admittedly, we fear the future, view it with apprehension – will I go to college, get a job? We want to minimize the apprehension, it’s human nature to do so. But we often also do that by “lowering the bar”. And when our dreams miss “the vision of God” as Pastor Mohn so aptly put it, we miss an opportunity to “dream what wasn’t and say ‘Why not?’ “. We miss an opportunity “to become” the best community we can be!

The problem may be not that our dreams are too big, but that they are too small.

In today’s Gospel text, John says “the truth will set us free”, not from a physical bondage or slavery, but from the bondage of fear and despair. The truth sets us free to dream and to hope, to believe in possibility!

I was near tears as she spoke, remembering a tiring yet magical, mystical Christmas when my daughter was only 20 days old, her lone small stocking hanging over the fireplace with a single world embroidered upon it

BELIEVE

Today the music was so aptly chosen. In one song, the words:

You never know why you’re here, until you know what you’d die for.

In the song “A Beautiful Day”, the words “one possible day”, Let’s go, let’s try, let’s hope … together. If you have no destination, but are driven by a beautiful imagination, see the world in green and blue in front of you. Touch me, teach me, take me to that other place.

Memories you look back to see; to see your dreams you must look in front of you!

Oh, and in the distance, the sweet words of Carl Sandburg …

Nothing happens … unless first a dream.

Not So Fast Cyrus …

Sunday, October 19, 2008
Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson

Isaiah 45:1-71

Thessalonians 1:1-10

Matthew 22:15-22

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/422/9A7435B6-5C5D-2343-6CAB-1750CBD8E2EB.mp3

It was a classic start to another classic Pastor Gary Johnson sermon.

It was 1962. social studies class. His teacher left the room, coming back some time later in silence with the news that he had been called up by the National Guard, that the Cuban Missile Crisis was in full swing. That WW III lay in the balance. The nukes … we had ‘em, they had ‘em. This was bad news.

All of today’s texts reckon with the theme that this could be WW III. The powers that be, the politics are all coming crashing down.

So how are we going to let the world affect us?

Millions of lost jobs. 1.5 wars. Dads, moms, wives, husbands, sons, daughters sacrificed. And in the end, the question:

Who has control over our lives. Or, most telling, whom do we allow to have this control? Several weeks ago, Pastor Mohn begged the question: Where are you from? Whom do you belong to? Today, we ask it again, albeit in a slightly different context.

Who do you belong to?

Pastor Johnson recounts the story that in 1849, archaeologists found the so-called Cyrus Cylinder on which was inscribed “I am Cyrus, King of Kings, King to the Four Quarters”. He had a message. He was the head honcho, big man on campus, and (forgive me, Wisconsin) the Big Cheese. Then The Almighty shows up not too unlike Steve Martin exclaiming, “EXCUUUUUUUUSE MEEEEEEEE!”

Excuse me, Cyrus, but, hey, I formed the light out of darkness. The life from no life, yeah, that was me too dude! Read it in Isaiah today … I go, I level, I break, I cut, I give, I call, I name, I arm, I am, I am, I am!

Translation: Cyrus, you’re not so hot.

Well, not in the grand scheme o’ things perspective.

Who do you belong to? God or some fellow named Cyrus, some Cyrus “of the moment”.

Paul, in his pastoral letter to the Thessalonians, claimed he knew the Word of God “came” to them. Pastor Johnson filled us in that the translation from the Greek text was more intimately “the Word fo God ‘came inside them’ … literally inside them”. And with God truly inside you, you’re not about THIS world, you’re not about “I’ve got mine and I want more. I never got no nothing from no body, thank you! You’re not about power and domination, bu about love & forgiveness & fellowship. You’re about the weekly rummage sale the Thessalonians had where they “shared the wealth” with each other. They were the socialists of their time. They belonged to God, not to Caesar.

In the context of this year’s heated election claims, it was not a hard leap to see the Herodians and the Pharisees join forces to spread the seeds of fallacy, to become (in Pastor Johnson’s well-chosen words) “total Eddie Haskel”, liar-liar. This was like Packer fans and Viking fans getting together, to rat out some Bear fans, or so he offered. And, not unlike this year, it was about your taxes. But these taxes were not “your Daddy’s taxes”. They were not for the common good, for roads, better health care, but merely a tribute to Caesar, a visual show for the Cyrus of his day so you’d get the message about who the Big Cheese was this century.

This is not a world that disenfranchises us? We thought they were our pension plans, but they were stolen by the likes of those we’d never met, and I hope we never do. People we don’t know bet our life’s savings and lost it. But Pastor Johnson paused and said it best after the quiet.

Real disciples know it was never ours to begin with. We have no control … in the end. Who do we belong to? God or Caesar? Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.

And what is God’s? Isaiah reminds us: EVERYTHING! Everything you are or could ever become. The world has no power over Jesus. And, IF YOU SO DECIDE, the world can and will have no power over you. In the most powerful moment of the morning, Pastor Johnson asked everyone to mentally conjure up “the very worst thing you’d done in your entire life, the absolute worst thing …. Now, do you have it? I imagine it wasn’t a long grasp to find it. You’ve got it? Now imagine this: It’s COMPLETELY FORGIVEN – no strings attached.


Caesar, Cyrus … on their very best days … can’t do that.


Whom do you belong to?

The Invitation

Sunday, October 12, 2008
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn


Isaiah 25:1-9
Philippians 4:1-9
Matthew 22:1-14



Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/422/6FD5C5F3-975A-69FE-90F3-A6EB7636E5AC.mp3

Pastor Mohn began by admitting this is a very difficult text. You’re hoping for good, reassuring news. You’re left asking, “Will I be one of the chosen few?”

Well, if you hang in there …. there is good news, but you’ll have to work your way through it. And it’s all about God’s invitation. The people made light of it. We made light of an invitation for which God did ALL the preparation. He had a robe in waiting, as was the custom for wedding guests and the guests refused the hospitality of the Host of Hosts. Remember last week when Pastor Johnson asked us if we’d ever been rejected … and what ti felt like? All dressed up and no one wanting us?

We are asked to do nothing more today than accept this most gracious invitation …. but, as Pastor Mohn concedes, there is a breakdown in trust, and with it, a lot of questions.

With the invitation outstanding, the people devoted themselves, instead, to idolatry. We placed out best, 1st efforts toward idols. We, as human beings, are good at finding other things to place our trust in. Sadly, we only often turn to God, as the Prodigal Sons, after the idols don’t deliver the goods.

The overriding question is “Where is God in all this?”

And the questions begs an answer, but receives none.

Look at the text from Isaiah where the people praise God for making of the city a heap of ruins. Pastor Mohn bemuses the notion of God being praised for destroying something?? And then the realization that what they are perhaps praising is not the destruction, but rather what God is replacing it with. Pastor Mohn thoughtfully shared the notion that it’s possible that with the destruction of one thing comes the room for creation of another, the story of the seasons, the circle of life, th closing of one door putting in motion the domino effect of events that open another door. God is busy in the details.

So where do we place our trust? We seem to want, crave a guarantee … that if we turn from these rather attractive looking idols,that it’ll somehow be made worth our while.

There is a book titled “What the Best College teachers Do” by Ken Bain in which he describes an intriguing aspect of teaching. When students (who are humans themselves) find themselves presented with a concept at odds with their interpretation of the world, they are VERY reticent to give up their false model without some guarantee that the newly offered goods are worth the trade. They seem to want a guarantee. Often, however, they must be willing to give up one to afford the free hands to grab the alternative. We, not only as students but as humans, suffer the same lack of trust.

Isaiah’s message is to Not Worry …. We are all called to help rebuild the mountain and set the table for everyone, even the undeserving prodigal sons coming down the road toward us. We are all called to be part of the rebuilding of a better place to replace the heap of a city that once was, but is now to be better. The “peace that surpasses all understanding” in Philippians is the fuel for that building, the courage to live that life of a disciple “without guarantees”, a trust and acceptance that what is to come will be better than what we are giving up to make room for it.

In Ken Bain’s book, he is careful to point out that in order for students to take the turn and “accept a new model of the universe and how it ticks”, they must do two things: they must care that their previous ways were somehow incorrect, and they must receive tremendous levels of support in order to transition to a new paradigm.

In Philippians, Paul is promising us that God will provide said support in “guarding our hearts and our minds”. He is saying to us all, “Come away from your idols and I will walk the road back with you, providing the peace that surpasses your understanding, providing safe haven for the uncertain journey to a place where we can live without fear, rejoicing at The Table prepared by the greatest host of all time”.

Here’s a robe for you … come now to the wedding feast!

Good News Network

Sunday, October 5, 2008
Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson

Isaiah 5:1-7

Philippians 3:4b-14

Matthew 21:33-46

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/422/C50E913B-4D5E-4C8B-7FE7-6124D92E2B62.mp3

Tabloid journalism right in Matthew!! This is stuff of NY Post cover stories. Jesus is trying to GET OUR ATTENTION!!

But lots of talk about vineyards. Isaiah sings a love song as Pastor Johnson drifted into “You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh …” Oh, Play It Again, Isaiah!

But seriously, there is all this talk of vineyards, but more than just talk. A gardener plants vines, but not just any vines. He plants the BEST of vines, tills the grounds, prunes the vines, builds a watchtower, hews a vat. This is serious tending going on.
He invests love in this dream house, in a love about which Isaiah sings. These are no skanky vines, no minimal crop.

And for all this investment, what’s he get? …. With grapes. This gardener is broken-hearted. Pastor Johnson suggests that you can here them saying “I invested all of me & you rejected me. You rejected my best efforts. I don’t have another Church. I don’t have another vineyard. I don’t have another love but you … and you rejected me.”

… and then “I am taking my dreamhouse & going home”. This is the voice of God, the jilted lover, the broken-hearted and ….

It’s all about that vineyard.

We hear it in Paul’s voice. He’s Mr. Law, Mr. Rules, a Hebrew among Hebrews, Big Man on Campus. He’s spotless. He’s got it all – advanced degrees, status, material goods … and he comes to the realization it’s all crap (literally …). He says that a whole sense of a life well-lived is rooted in the message of Jesus. Everyhting else this world holds in esteem and of value is rubbish.
What is this vineyard that God would send His only Son amongst its wild grapes?

This is the vineyard of salvation – the blood of whose grapes are the precious blood of Christ. This is our vineyard that God has entrusted to us. And the key questions are these:

How do we treat the vineyard?
How do we treat those who come to the vineyard?

Pastor Johnson asked for a show of hands, asking if any of the congregation had been rejected from taking Communion in their Church lives. About 1/3 of those there said so. He felt strongly that this was one of those ultimate ironies of organized religion. Communion is one of the primal examples of our unity. It united Christians the world over every time bread is broken in community. It is a powerful mystery in whose presence we shoud ultimately feel humbled. It represents a sacrifice for which we should be willing to give our lives. As Paul says, “It is everything. It is everything you’ll ever need. The rest is rubbish.” At Church, we keep the bread on the altar, a pedestal, guarded by a rail encircling it. Imagine the irony of being rejected from partaking of that which unites us. It is everything. It is all we truly need. It is redemption. It is transformation. It is a reminder of something out there bigger than us.

The irony is that THIS should be the headline story on GNN!!

I attended the Youth Group Work Camp last summer (2007) and at one of the devotional evenings I saw a movie I will long remember. The setting was our world removed into the future. A terrible viral disease had gripped the Earth and millions were dying. Two parents of an only child learned that their son had the single rare blood type that could be “cloned” and mass-produced in sufficient quantities to save the human race. The catch? It would take all of the child’s blood and the child would not survive. I am the father of two young children that tug at my heart every single night. Even imagining the depth of sacrificing one of their lives was gut-wrenching, to say the least. The parents ask the child to decide and the child offers to give his life. Cut to a scene many years hence. The father is walking through a Times Square looking scene with people on cell phones rushing about, hardly recognizing one another. They were nto seeming to care about each other in as much as they were barely aware of their brothers around them, right next to them. The father muses, “I thought this would have made a difference. Do any of these people know the depths of that child’s sacrifice so that they could be walking here today, healthy, well-fed, alive, breathing clean air, seeing the colors of the rainbow, tasting the juice of raindrops? I thought it would make a difference …”

This is God the Father in the scripture of Matthew today looking down on the vineyard, carefully taking note of how we are tending it and who we welcome into the vineyard. He sacrificed His only Son, sending him in amongst the wild grapes at great cost.

There were no headlines on the billboards of Times Square regaling the ultimate sacrifice … only a father looking into that vineyard in dismay at the grapes gone wild despite his very best efforts.

So Jesus, today, is desperately trying to get our attention amidst the storm of our daily lives. He’s given all his blood for us. It was ALL we needed … to save a planet.

And He asks only this:

How are you treating the vineyard? … and
How are you treating your brothers who wander in?

Workin’ 8 to 5

Sunday, September 21, 2008
Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson

Readings:

Jonah 3:10-4:11
Philippians 1:21-30

Matthew 20:1-16

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/422/58D7D696-A6D0-8FAD-AD0F-137D918F06E3.mp3

Pastor Johnson started by mentioning that today’s Gospel lesson is often referred to as the Sermon of Affirmative Action. Hey, somebody’s getting’ somethin’ for nothin’. That ain’t fair!

We take pride in our work and our working, our having earned our keep. We define ourselves by “what we do”, by our “busy-ness”. In admiring our being busy, we buy into the adage that our value-added IS our value. THESE PEOPLE who show up at 5 o’clock? What’s with them?

And I’ve been here workin’ and sweatin’ you-know-what since 8!

But this is the Kingdom of Heaven … and there’s no accounting sheet here (see Pastor Mohn’s sermon from last week …). In here, it’s not about an hourly wage earned; it’s about forgiveness (10 times the number you speak times the number you speak), it’s about love, it’s about being there.

We see the Heavenly Father full of gleefulness if the Prodigal Son shows up at all!!! And if he doesn't show up, the Father will go out and look for him!

This IS your Father’s workplace!

As I listened to Pastor Johnson craftily weave the lesson and sermon with that of the Prodigal Son, I was reminded that I’ve heard sermons here before about how it’s “not about the son … it’s about the father”!

I was also taken over by a metaphor of an emergency: a burning building, a sinking ship. About how in times such as these, even when Mr. 5 O’clock shows up running for the elevator door or shows up just as the last life raft is about to cut loose … the Captain is ecstatic to see another person “in the SAVED column”. In that scenario, isn’t it just plausible we’d extend a hand to someone who “showed up at 5 o’clock and did ‘way less’ than we did to earn their passage”? Maybe, just maybe, at such a moment, we realize we never earn our passage anyway.

In the heat of the burning building, all the rules are changed. Would we push anyone out of the last staircase down to salvation?

Maybe, maybe not …. But in the regular old Monday Morning working world, when we show up at 8 o’clock everyday and work ourselves hard and we watch Mr. 5 o’clock waste away his inheritance, squandering his keep, lulling around and then show up at closing time, we sure don’t expect he’s going to ge the fatted calf killed for the likes of him. Just as Pastor Mohn skillfully weaved Field of Dreams into yet another sermon last week, I’ll have to borrow it “one (last?) more time this week. When we see Mr. 5 O’clock get what we get for working since 8, we yell out “Hey, what’s in it for me?”

I listened to the Voice, I did everything it told me to do and not once did I ask “What’s in it for me?”

Who’s this Terence Mann guy you just invite into the cornfield when I BUILT IT???

Our Mr. 8 O’clock is very recognizable. They’re the ones taking care of their aging parent, making sure they’re at their doctor’s appointments, taking their medicine; they’re there when they get sick, they’re the ones calling the distant brothers and sisters, they’re the one there when their aging parent dies, they’re holding the reins, day after hot and scorching day … they’re in the hot vineyard. And they're more than likely Ms. or Mrs. 8 o'clock. And then Mr. 5 O’clock flies in from California for the funeral. And when he walks in, the surviving parent, their Mom lights up like a Christmas tree and hugs them ‘til it hurts. And Mom says, “I’m SO glad you’re here”.

The dutiful 8 o’clock sister or brother of the 5 o’clock prodigal son says “You have no idea what working in the scorching sun is, do you?

And you get the same as I do?!? ”

Who’s this Terence Mann guy you just invite into the cornfield when I BUILT IT???

Sounds like Ray gets a little angry. Well, when the lost son is found, who can be angry with the Father for his joy in finding him again. No matter what kind of scoundrel the son is, who can fault a father for crying tears of joy when he finds him and pulls him into that lifeboat or from that burning building?

You see … at that moment, it might be a good time to just stop and think; to think about what has brought the brother home … because, Pastor Johnson reminds us, often it is from around a corner where they have bottomed out, realizing that “back home” is their ONLY option. They have had some moment of dire realization, of transformation. Their road out might have been filled with wine, women, and philanderin’, but their road back was a tougher one.

To us who think we’ve been working since 8, it isn’t fair. To Mr. 8 O'clock, he's been trying to earn his Father's love, not realizing he already had it all along. To Mr. 5 O'clock, it's a hard look in the mirror that brings him to realize that home's the only place he's got left, the only road to salvation. To God, it’s about EVERYBODY, Mr. 8 O’clock AND Mr. 5 O’clock getting a FULL measure of God’s grace.

Sieben Multipliziert mit seibzig … dann … Bangen!

Sunday, September 14, 2008
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn

Genesis 50:15-21

Romans 14:1-12

Matthew 18:21-35

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/292/32745F1F-5C26-C20E-8EA4-C6B1EE86EF1B.mp3

Pastor Mohn pointed out a realization that often hits “the crowd” (perhaps) more often than “the Pastor” – that sometimes the three Scriptural texts seem to bear no common theme. Not so today. Today the three texts have a resounding emphasis on forgiveness – one of the most difficult things to face. In Genesis, we hear of the story of Joseph and his brothers and the sins of favoritism and jealousy. In Romans, the sins of conflict and disagreement.

Pastor Mohn pointed out that she was listening to the speeches at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions weeks ago and was struck when Barack Obama mentioned it was an election about small and big things. So, she felt, was partly the message on forgiveness. We often fight about the smallest things. Pastor Mohn shared a story about a church committee arguing over the choice of hymn for Mission Sunday – how it got so heated the decision had to be tabled. Remember the book “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”?

We so often do. And God calls us to think of our petty grievances in a larger context.
We do not live or die to ourselves and the small things. If we live, we live to the Lord and if we die, we die to the Lord. So often the arguments are about what we eat, what hymn we’re going to sing. Today Jesus is saying “Why sweat the small stuff … when the big stuff’s already been taken care of for you?”

Pastor Mohn also shared that while last week’s text was her wedding text, this week’s is her funeral text … for reasons that in it:

Forgiveness is a matter of perspective.

There’s a new play called Seventy Times Seven then Pow! in which a husband keeps a chalkboard checking off the 490 forgivenesses he’s called to offer his wife. Presumably, he’s off the hook after that. Pastor Mohn offered the sense that we often seek the literal accounting, "in the German sense". We want to know EXACTLY what’s expected of us – how many times to forgive, precisely. We want a tally, a chalkboard. But make no mistake ... when we sin, we come to God with conditions … the extenuating circumstances that brought us to give into temptation – a rationalization, a host of excuses and reasons for transgressions beyond our control. We want understanding for the circumstantial nature of the evidence against us, that brought us to fall victim to sin. We’re victims, you see, when we sin. But when we’re sinned against? Well, thems different apples all together. Then we want a full accounting by the letter of the law. We want the tally in minute detail. So … if we forgive, we want tit for tat; we want equal forgiveness.

What happens when we’re confronted? Jesus told us how to handle conflict two weeks ago in the scripture readings. But after that thoughful progression of confrontation, Jesus says then let go. But that goes against our sense of fairness. It’s not attractive, it’s not fair and it goes against our sensibilities. When the “seventy times seven” message collided with the tally sheet analogy, I wondered if what Jesus meant was not even just “seventy times seven”. What the questioners in Scripture does is “pose a number” (an accounting we can see and taste and touch!). What if what Jesus is saying is “It’s (always) ten times the number you mention times the number you mention” ?? By that reckoning, when the husband gets to 490 “I forgive you’s”, the number turns to 4900 times that. Just as Pastor Johnson said two weeks back, the number God has in mind is “beyond our imagining”. It’s always bigger and bigger than we can ever write down or reach. And no matter how big it is, Jesus sacrifice for us all is bigger still.

What God seeks from us is a change in perspective, to see a bigger picture, a picture bigger than ourselves.

At the end of the movie Field of Dreams, Ray Kinsella, who’s listened dutifully to The Voice and built The Field at great cost to himself and his family, sees the ballplayers invite Terrence Mann into the cornfield, but not Ray, who says “Why him? I built this field!” … to which the player responds, “What are you saying, Ray?” Are you saying what’s in it for you?”. And Ray says that he has done “exactly as he’s been told”, he’s forgiven seven times seventy times. And he bellows “Im saying …

’What’s in it for me?’

Well, Jesus has the answer today. What’s in it for us?

Nothing ……

We’re no more righteous than the next guy, no more deserving. You can’t “build-a-cornfield-your-way-into-heaven”. You have that gift, you had it … before you tried to earn it and build-your-way-in. That’s why Shoeless Joe Jackson tells Ray, “You better stay here, Ray … If you build it, He will come.”

What you get for putting down your clipboard, your accounting and balance sheet is this: freedom.

God put the clipboard down on each of us on the cross.

Everytime … EVERY time you forgive someone, you thank God for forgiving you

... for everything you’ve ever done wrong … and that tally sheet’s a mile long.

How ‘bout we stop fighting over that hymn for Mission Sunday? How ‘bout we stop crying “What’s in it for me?”

If we live, we do not live to ourselves. If we die, we do not die to ourselves. We are called to see “a bigger picture”, something bigger than ourselves. We are called to “build it” so “they will come” … by building it, we earn nothing, not even entrée for ourselves. That price’s already been paid in full. And He who paid it asks this: for us to live as brothers and sisters, to bask in the forgiveness we can never fully understand … and we are called to extend it to others, so we can live in the grace of God.

Kumbayada_yada_yada

Sunday, August 31, 2008
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn

Jeremiah 15:15-21

Romans 12:9-21

Matthew 16:21-28

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/422/8093FB0B-D6F7-C829-028D-F66A5C8CAD69.mp3

Pastor Mohn glibly passes on to us that Pastor Johnson has left the task to her to expound upon “Who Jesus is” this week. She launched into how in Bible Study often someone, after reading a particularly intriguing text from Scripture, will add, “I wish Jesus were here to explain this to us. I wish Jesus could be here to “pull up a chair” and lend us His take on this. She admitted feeling similarly, but not, she said, with this today’s Gospel! When this text comes up, she confesses, she doesn’t want Jesus anywhere near her … for fear of what He might say.

Jesus has high expectations, as He does of Peter today, and he does not shy away from letting us know.

While “the wishing for Jesus” is a natural thing, actually getting Him would be a mixed bag. As with Peter, He may be quite complimentary one minute. The next, we’re no better than Satan. Would we really want Jesus to be with us in all His honesty & up-front-ness, really? After all, He does call a spade a spade. He calls it as it is … pretty much always. And we’re not always comfortable with that.

Pastor Mohn admitted that having been tasked with addressing who Jesus is, she asked several people. And what you find out is there are as many Jesuses as there are people you can ask. No matter who you ask, a person’s perception of Jesus is shaped by who they are, where they’ve been, what they’ve seen – their Jesus is their perception of Jesus, as unique as their experiences, based on their individual stories, their hopes, their fears.

No matter what, it’s safe to say that the question of “Who Jesus is?” is a pretty complicated one. And the answer will not be what you expect. It will not be our mind’s Jesus.

At summer camp, Pastor Mohn confessed to coming to campfire each night resolutely committed to NOT singing Kumbaya. It was old, cheesy, all too accepting-with-open-arms and not confrontational. Or as Wikipedia puts it:

Kumbaya was originally associated with unity and closeness, but more recently is also alluded to sarcastically to connote a blandly pious and naively optimistic view of the world and human nature.

Pastor Mohn admitted “they don’t say ‘come by’ in NW Iowa. Would we ask Jesus to “stop by”, only to stay a very short stint and move on? Wouldn’t we want Jesus to “pull up a chair” and join us by the fire for awhile? Well sometimes we want God to stop by so we can vent, dump it all out and have Him say “What a bummer!”, to listen to our cares and concerns and feel compassion and kinship with us. Also, we’d like to share what we’ve done that’s good and get our checkmark.

But to REALLY ask Jesus to “come by” is something more … it’s riskier than that because He doesn’t just listen, He speaks. And He will say things we won’t expect, we can’t control, and we won’t like. He’ll weigh in on what we’re doing and He’ll task us and challenge us.

Pastor Mohn shared with us that today’s text from Romans was her and Erik’s wedding text:

9Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.[a] Do not be conceited.
17Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"[b]says the Lord. 20On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."[c] 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.


The heap of burning coals was quite dramatic, she admits, but she shared that she felt that it might be weighing in on a point Jesus wants to make:

When you’re kind when you don’t have to be, you change the rules.

You leave the person who’s been cruel unsure of what’s supposed to happen next. A devotional I read one day suggested that Jesus didn’t really want disciples who impressed people more than he wanted disciples who surprised people! Left them second-guessing. And Romans offers a litany of “How to’s” on this front. But it’s not a checklist you might aspire to attempt to complete. That would probably drive you crazy, Pastor Mohn admits.

Rather, it’s prescription of how one might try to live ... it's the result of a transformed soul and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Seeing the world this way, as Jesus does, is Who Jesus is. It’s about putting something else - other than self – first. When this Jesus is present, you see the world an entirely different way. And it’s not always comfortable for us. We’re not going to like it all the time.

When Christ is present, there’s room to treat the world in a way that doesn’t make sense – one that allows for God to work. And it will get dicey, sticky; it’ll offend some people, you can be sure.

When we invite God to “come by”, we have to be prepared for Him not just to listen, but to speak. With this invitation comes a burden – the burden that comes with seeking peace and justice – and that exacts a price. This is a costly invitation, one that the campfire song no longer seems to connote.

This was a heavy sermon, Pastor Mohn admits – but the texts are heavy – about God’s great gift and how we each can embody it … by singing Kumbaya … and taking the risk that comes with the offer for Jesus to truly “Come by” ...

Beyond Imagining

Sunday, August 24, 2008
Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson

Readings:
Isaiah 51:1-6
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/422/1BBF417E-A28C-D7DE-9158-F454AA2C43F2.mp3

Pastor Johnson admitted finding this week’s texts terribly disconnected. Today’s Gospel lessons needs to be seen in the context of the events leading to it and those subsequent to it. That said, we are left with the two terribly important questions. Who do people say Jesus is and “who do you (presumably meaning the disciples) say that I am?”. One of the key insights Pastor Johnson offers us is that Jesus is, perhaps, not addressing the disciples (only). He is addressing all of us when he asks, “Who do you say that I am?”

And Peter gets the answer right! And then Jesus tells him to not tell anyone. Right! You get 100 on the test and you need to keep it to yourself?! Pastor Johnson shared with us what we know – that we humans all share a need to put God in a box that makes sense to us. We need to package God in a way to which we can relate.

But Jesus knows the truth – that no human can fathom the depth and meaning of what God truly is. Isaiah implores us to “look to the rock from which we are hewn, and to the quarry from which we were dug”.

Pastor Johnson just returned from vacationing in Canada where he stood on 15,000 year old granite boulders. Geologic babies – compared with the 1 million year old granite that dots the plane we call home. When you stand on those baby rocks, you are in awe of the vastness of God’s universe and creation. You are humbled.

Many treatises on science quote Sir Arthur Eddington who said of our cosmos:

“Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine; it is stranger than we can imagine ..."

If we equate the cosmos with the God who created it and strangeness implies that we have difficulty imagining, we can apply these very words to today’s lesson. God is not only more than we do imagine, He is more than we are capable of imagining. We want God to look and act just like us so He can understand us and give us what we want when we need it, what we need when we want it. As much as we may want to, we cannot put Him in a box, or in our brains.

The Olympics were a reminder in our own living rooms that the world is much bigger than 53213, 53226, or 53XXX. The planet is much more diverse than we ever often stop to imagine. It is all shades of black, tan, yellow, red. It is more than Wauwatosa, more than the small world we allow ourselves to be limited to living in. God is more than a white guy from the Midwest, He is not Democrat or Republican. He defies categorization or characterization as we attempt these. The diversity of creation, the vastness of the cosmos remind us we have no right to be smug or self-righteous.

Paul gets it. He gets that God is more than the law. We need for God to be more than the law. We need grace and mercy – and this is why Jesus comes to offer us what we have not the muster to imagine. Paul struggles with this for 11 chapters and in chapter 12, he reasons that God’s mercy and grace are not something “we can get or understand”.

And for all the struggling, Paul comes up with this, a two-part suggestion:

Present your bodies, yourselves as a living sacrifice. Paul’s “a temple guy”, he gets sacrifice and what it entails. He suggests that “we kill ourselves” – that we empty ourselves, let go of our egos, our demands, our preconceptions; empty ourselves so that we can fill ourselves up with God. Paul was sent with the message that we “empty the well”.

We are, each of us individually, only a part of a greater whole. We are, each of us, only ever endowed with special, unique gifts not to be measured by their size, but by their necessity as part of a whole. We all bring 2 saltines to the mix and together God uses us all to feed the 5000. All of our gifts together are as awesome as the 15,000 year old baby rocks beneath our feet.

But this need to get over ourselves, and recognize our part in a greater whole are both lessons that the world will seldom teach us – in fact, it often espouses pretty much the opposite. You won’t learn much about Paul’s suggestions by watching a world that is not about emptying, bu about winning, about accumulating, about medal counts and gold trumps silver trumps bronze trumps a twelfth place personal best.

If you watch that world, you don’t have to look hard to see what Rabbi Harold Kushner saw – a billboard on the highway in Massachusetts before the 1996 Atlanta Olympics that read “You don’t win the silver – you lose the gold.” If you watch the world, you saw what I saw when the USA pole vaulting silver medalist in Beijing, Jennifer Stuczynski, a woman barely vaulting four years place second behind the reigning world champion from Russia. Upon "winning silver", she was crudely and callously chided by her coach on international television for taking “only the silver” … looking at her with disdain in her moment of personal triumph and best, offering only “What can you do? It’s a silver.”

Pastor Johnson was reminded of this by watching the coverage in Canada where stories of athletes performing their personal best were perhaps more compelling than the national coverage in America, stacked as it is around daily medal counts and its obsession with gold and supremacy and superlatives.

In the topsy-turvy world of Jesus, we are offered a different notion:

Be not conformed to this world, but instead be transformed.

There are not enough rules in the cosmos to help you.

Empty yourself … and then ask “God, is there anything I can do for you?”

For most of us (who are not Mother Theresa), this will be something ordinary, something simple – a small but not insignificant kindness, patience in the heat of happenings, forgiveness for a wrong done to you, a moment of not judging someone. It will be a kind word, a thought, a touch or a smile.

Our gifts are not spectacular, they’re not gold medals. God asks of us our 2nd place, our 5th place, our 89th place finish. Why? Because we can.

And He will use your thread as just one among many in the greatest of tapestries, one we may often be too close to see as it is seen from afar, one beyond our imagining, or our ability to imagine, but not beyond God’s making.

Where Are You From?

Sunday, August 17, 2008
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn

Readings:
Isaiah 56:1,6-8
Romans 11:1-2a,29-32
Matthew 15:[10-20] 21-28

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/422/CB7FEE81-12A7-B502-E8E4-DD5F0B0A8CBA.mp3

Pastor Mohn greeted us today with a confession that she’s on Round 2 of preaching the scriptures and she’s felt, at times, as if she’s out of stories, even ones about her family. So thank God for the Olympics. The theme resonating through this week’s texts is nationality, wha tit means to be foreign, to be from “away”.

The question “Where are you from?” permeates all the readings today.
Watching the Olympic opening ceremonies, we were regaled with images of the host country, its culture, the depth and richness of its country and people. Nation after nation marched into the Bird’s Nest in its own unique attire, with its own unique behavior and mannerisms. What a diverse world we live in and what a cool thing that is to see and realize. It is also a reminder that not every basketball player is American!

One thing that stuck out to Pastor Mohn was how many athletes were not competing for their home country of origin. One story was telling, a woman gymnast whose son was suffering from leukemia, but could not get medical help in her own country. So she moved to Germany, and became a gymnast while her son received the medical attention he required. And they would not play the German national anthem for her until she officially became a citizen. When she had, they claimed her for their own. She belonged to them.

And, yet, she remains from her home of origin as well.

The Olympics showcases this interesting and telling dichotomy. Our national identity says something about “where we’re from”, but it begs an accompanying question …

Is your place of origin as important as we’re you’re from “right now”?

Speaking as a self-professed nomad, Pastor Mohn laughingly recounted how when she and Erik are asked “Where are you from?”, they look at eachother and smile. As a relative nomad, myself, I often share a similar smile with Laurna when we’re asked that same question.

We think “Do you mean the last 3 years? …the four before that. Where I was born? Where my family comes from? I guess I’m from Wisconsin." I know Laurna and I only just this past year can say that we’ve lived in Wisconsin longer than we’ve lived anywhere our entire adult lives since moving out of our parents’ homes.

In Isaiah, the Israelites are not from where they’re from! They are in exile. They’re from Jerusalem, but they live in Babylon. If you ask them, they will tell you they “belong to God”.

“And foreigners who join themselves to the Lord … these I will bring to my holy mountain.”

God has made the net bigger!

Pastor Mohn offers a thought-provoking nuance. Often the question “Where are you from?” begs an underlying question “To whom do you belong? Who claims you as their own?”. This will tell us something about ‘who you are’.

Rcently David Brooks wrote his Op-Ed column in the NY Times pondering why Barack Obama in not leading by a landslide in the national presidential polls. His theory is that:

“ … Obama is a sojourner. He was in law school, but not of it … he was in the legislature, but not of it … he partook in Trinity United Church of Christ, but was not of it … He is in the US Senate, but not of it. He absorbed things from those diverse places, but was not fully of them. This has been a consistent pattern throughout his odyssey … and it does make him ‘hard to place’. We don’t just judge the individuals but the places that produced them. We judge them by the connections that exist beyond choice and the ground where they will go home to be laid to rest … If you grew up in the 1950s, you were inclined to regard your identity as something you were born with. If you grew up in the 1970s, you were more likely to regard your identity as something you created.”

Very telling, indeed, this “where’re you from” conundrum.

In Romans, Paul tells us that God is claiming a wider collection than was previously imagined (by us). Our imagining is faulty in this regard. The message in Romans is also that when Jesus comes and “does this new thing”, he is making the net wider, to be more inclusive.

And then, on the heels of this dramatic message, he calls a woman a dog, he ignores her in a dramatically rude fashion. Pastor Mohn shares that there are many interpretations of why Jesus might have done this. Perhaps he was being ironic to teach the disciples a lesson by proxy, maybe preaching “A”, then doing just the opposite to make a point. Pastor Mohn offers an alternative & truly human interpretation … maybe Jesus was just tired, at the end of a very long day with no gas left in his tank.

Haven’t we all been there? Working away finally at something we need done when the phone rings and we say “Do I have the time for them?” There’s often not enough of us, seemingly, to ‘go around’. Maybe Jesus was saying “Do I have anything left for one more person?” There’s not enough of me to go around.

But the woman answers him directly and forthrightly. She counters

“What if it’s even bigger than we thought? What if the net is, indeed, wider? What if God’s intention is beyond anything we’ve yet imagined? What if our imagination has been faulty ( to this point)?”

What if?

She is wise enough to remind Jesus that every loaf of bread sheds its crumbs that nobody wants. Even if she can’t sit at the table where Jesus is because of where she’s from, she wants those crumbs. She’ll take the scraps. She’s not proud. She knows she doesn’t deserve it, but she’ll take what she can get.

When the body of Jesus is broken, grace and mercy spill out all over the place. We know we don’t deserve it, but we each secretly hope there might be a crumb or two left over that nobody wants, that we can find later when there’s no one to tell us we can’t have it.

When the body of Jesus is broken, there’s plenty to go around. There’s nobody checking ID’s, saying “Where are you from? To whom do you belong?”.

They simply give and we receive … the scraps – that promise peace beyond our faulty imagining, hope beyond all that tomorrow will bring unbeknownst to us, love that is beyond that of a parent for their child.

So .. the answer to “Where are you from? To whom do we belong?” is we belong to God. It’s a miracle that the scraps left over are enough for all – even you!

No More Rules

Sunday, May 11, 2008
Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson

Readings:
Acts 2:1-21
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
John 20:19-23

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/422/7219B46F-94B2-F409-F5F4-C9D82E328734.mp3

“All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”

I am going to leave you now, but I will be leaving you the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Comforter. Why? Well, maybe because He’s like the teaching assistant. The lecture’s over, but the learning is still to take place. And we’re all going to need the help.

Have all of us not done something we wished we hadn’t done, said something we wished we hadn’t said, were in a situation we wished were weren’t in? For all of our sinfulness and rottenness and shortcoming, how does Jesus welcome us? With messages of how far short we’ve fallen? No … but rather with “Peace Be With You”.

The kids, aka the apostles, thought school was out, finals were over. But we’re not being graded (yet) – we’re just beginning. And it’s not just a beginning, it’s a Grand Opening. Pastor Johnson illustrated the moment with images of driving through the streets of Detroit late at night following the search lights arcing through the night sky, driving around trying to locate them. Today, we’ve found the place that’s open! Our hearts and minds can be opened by the power of the Holy Spirit.

If you’ve ever spoken words you know you didn’t speak, spoke up for someone who couldn’t speak up for themselves, were visited at 2 a.m. in your kitchen by someone who came to comfort you, you have been visited by the Advocate. Who doesn’t want to spread that Word??

Today, all divisions – race, gender, age, ethnicity, denomination, religion, country – all divisions are antithetical. There are no more divisions, only community.

To God, there are no foreign languages. The Word of God is not spoken in English. The Living Word must be spoken in all languages. It is not one that reminds us of who’s out and who’s in, who’s down and who’s up, who’s bad and who’s good. There is, today, no longer East or West, slave or free, man or woman. There is no one part of the body to be judged any less worthy than another. Leave the judgment to God. Judgment will block the entry of the Holy Spirit. Each instrument was created to produce a unique sound, its individual contribution to the orchestra, each as pleasing to God as the other.

We hear today “Are these not Galilleans?” The Galilleans were known for not being smart enough to be erudite in many languages. There was prejudice against them and their accents. And these are the very ones God chooses to spread His Word.

Pastor Johnson pointed out that in their home, everyone contributes uniquely in accordance with their gifts: Hannah bakes, Caleb’s the techno-geek, Professor Scott Page of the University of Michigan recently published his research on the power of diversity in human working groups. His research has shown that a group comprised of a diverse set of people and talents statistically solve problems faster and better than a comparable size group of “the smartest people”. This, he surmises, is because diverse groups bring more and different ways of seeing a problem to the table. Professor Page states:

“Any one of us can get stuck. If we’re in groups where everyone thinks the same way, everyone will get stuck in the same place.”

Garrison Keillor has said it similarly when he said,

“Four wheel drive only allows you to get stuck in more remote places.”

The empirical data shows that more diverse cities are more productive, more diverse boards of directors make better decisions, and the most innovative companies are the most diverse in makeup. Even social science mathematical models developed by economists at the Loyola University in Chicago show that diversity trumps ability, that diverse groups of problem solvers outperformed the groups comprised of individuals deemed the best problem solvers.

We all have different gifts and we’re should be spending our time wisely to use them rather than judging which of ours is most beneficial overall. We are often too quick to tout strength as an asset. Yet the propeller on a boat is spared costly and irreparable damage when a shear pin fails. When the pin fails, the design and the overall mission succeeds! The shear pin’s the Galillean in the design and God sees their value in the grand scheme.

It’s the Grand Opening and the Holy Spirit announces:

There are No More Rules!

You thought it was for one people – but it’s or all peoples.
You thought there was but one language, but there are all languages.
You thought it was just America, but it’s for all countries.

We have work to do, but it’s fun work – to find our common ground. Pastor Johnson shared a warm story about Caleb’s summer job cutting grass at a country club, working with nearly all older Mexican workers. They weren’t the same age or marital status, they spoke different languages, ate different food, had very different names. But they once saw Caleb forget his lunch, and they reached in their lunch pails and shared theirs. For days afterward, when they rose at 3 a.m., they made sure they packed an extra bit for the kid who might, again, forget his lunch – the kid 'whose name we can’t pronounce'. They always made sure there was something extra for Caleb. The one thing they did have in common was knowing what it was like to be a young boy who’s hungry.

We have a lot in common: work, school, suffering, hunger, our aches, our pains, and our dreams. Let’s not exploit our differences or judge each other for them. Let’s instead, exploit our differences for the greater good of all.

We have to work so we can reach out to one another, in each others’ languages and say to one another … “Peace Be With You”.