The Lesson of the Skin Horse

Sunday, March 8, 2009
2nd Sunday in Lent
Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson

Readings:
Genesis 17:1-7,15-16
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38


Audio sermon file:

http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/D1022BC1-DAEE-5A0F-4D2A-D06A155149DD.mp3


In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples how the Son of Man must undergo great suffering. Peter rebukes Jesus who then calls him “the devil”. Ouch! Peter knows Jesus as a mentor and very good friend. He doesn’t want to ehar what Jesus has to say. Die, be buried, raise from the dead. Peter never gets past the “Die” part. And you can’t blame him. Jesus I one of his best friends and Paeter doesn’t want to hear what Jesus is telling him.

This is a text about arguing as friends.

It’s not easy to get in a fight with someone we love. But it’s a sign of real caring. We care enough to disagree. We care enough to rebuke. We care enough to try to work it out.

With family, too, we can disagree, sometimes passionately. We argue, but it doesn’t have to rupture the relationship. Sometimes in martial counseling, Pastor Johnson shared he meets couples who “confess” they never fight. If it’s nottrue, they’re lying. They wouldn’t lie to a pastor, would they? And the lying’s got no place in a healthy relationship. If it’s not true, it’s also not healthy because there’s a problem with “never arguing”.

You have to argue and be willing to disagree. You have to be willing to test a relationship. You have to be able to withstand having different points of view. You have to forge a partnership that can withstand disagreeing. In engineering design, you constantly fortify a design to withstand the expected loads. A component or a system like a bridge that’s never loaded is not deemed a success simply because no car’s ever driven over it.


In the children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit, the Skin Horse says that he has weathered the love that has made his tail thin of hair and his eye rubbed over and over. At the prospect of becomign "real", the Skin Horse shares:



"You become (real). It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

You need to weather the weathering, he claims, to “become real”. And with freinds, you are never ugly. A friend understands. But "it doesn't happen often to those who have to be carefully kept".

You have to find ways to disagree … even passionately.

Pastor Johnson adds here that some folks mention they have friends who are good sounding boards, who listen to their whole story and do not judge them … and he comes to the conclusion …

You can get rid of those friends.

You NEED a friend who’ll tell you sometimes you sin.

You NEED a friend who’ll tell you sometimes you’re wrong.

… and that relationship needs to be able to withstand that.

Lots of times people will say that “You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family.”

But Pastor Johnson offered the notion that it might be more the case that the opposite is true. One author he read has the theory that our friends are picked for us, ordained gifts from God, lampposts sent our way to guide in some sense. Sometimes they are the unlikeliest od characters, so different from us. It’s odd how they come into our lives at opportune moments, by happenstance, by God’s grace.

We do, however, pick our family. We LOVE Aunt Josie, but Uncle Harry – he’s not getting near that punch bowl. We pick out and shape our family.

Our friends are unlikely, beautiful “grace notes” in our lives. And you can be that only if you’re willing to fight and only if you’re willing to make up.

Gary Johnson admitted he liked this lesson because he thought of it differently now than he did or would have earlier in his life. He knows now that your best friend is someone who can’t bear to see you in pain. Peter can’t watch or hear what Jesus has to say anymore. Then … a few days later, it’s Peter who recognizes Jesus and runs out to embrace him. And Jesus says, “Peter, do you love me? … Peter, do you love me? … I’d like for you to be the one to feed my lambs.” Their friendship survives Peter rebuking Jesus, Jesus calling Peter “the devil”; it survives the name-calling, the arguing, the betrayal … because they always have forgiveness and the deep love from which these arguments were born.

If you find yourself in these disagreements with a best friend, with someone you consider your pal for a long, long time, this is a gift. It’s a gift of your friendship that you can withstand these moments.

By God’s grace, you will mend these relationships because that’s what you wanted to do all along. By God’s grace and with Peter as our example, the mending will take place.

When You Realize ...

Sunday, March 1, 2009
1st Sunday in Lent
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn
Readings:
Genesis 9:8-17
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:9-15



Audio sermon file: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/611B843A-9CD9-C29C-FF9E-2840D30477C4.mp3


I heard Pastor Mohn had a really good sermon to preach today. I heard it from Pastor Mohn – right before she said she wasn’t going to preach it!

A long cold took the wind out of the larynx and she pocketed that sermon. I sat disappointed in my pew. She confessed she was disappointed (too) but she figured on a pretty cool substitute. She pointed out tha the Gospel from Mark was not long-winded. The verses today are short, compact, but chock-full – Pure Hemingway.
Mark did not need many words to tell the story he had to tell … and there was a reason.

So Pastor Mohn mused …

Think about when you passed on The Best News You Ever Heard

“I’ve been accepted”
“I’m pregnant!”
“I’m NOT pregnant!!!!”
“We’re staying …”
“We’re going …”
“It’s FINALLY over!”
“It’s only just begun.”
“EUREKA!! I found it!”

These moments of realizing your best news are the in-between places Pastor Johnson referred to just last week. The bookmarks of life.

This news, by the way? How long did it take you to share it? Was it anti-climactic? Did you script it in a long arc? How long did it take to get it out … in words? Was it something you blurted out, not neat and structured, but just couldn’t contain?
Something so good “it fell out of you”? Did you rush to find somebody particular to tell? Or did you just tell a complete stranger?

If you think this last notion is a tad unbelievable, I have to interject with this short, but true tale of the weekend I asked Laurna to marry me. I asked her atop of the Pinnacles National Monument in California. En route back to our bed and breakfast, she was plotting who to tell and in what order and when. She asked me to PLEASE NOT tell anyone before we told our parents. I dutifully agreed. At breakfast the next morning, someone asked if what all we had done the day before. Laurna blurted out “He asked me to marry him!” I choked on my raspberry fru-fru tart and yogurt marmalade. So much for the best laid plans of sharing this news with family first. Not just not family, but complete strangers.

The reality of sharing really good news is it changes what comes next.

In an irrevocable way. The next becomes now – before you know it. What comes after is so interesting it changes everything. In the movie When Harry Met Sally, Harry picks the oddball moment at New Year’s Eve to let Sally know what he finally realizes he’s felt … and it changes EVERYTHING:

Sally: You can’t just walk in here and expect it to change everything. It doesn’t work that way.
Harry: Well, how does it work?
Sally: I don't know, but not this way.
Harry: How about this way? I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
Sally: You see? That is just like you, Harry. You say things like that, and you make it impossible for me to hate you, and I hate you, Harry. I really hate you. I hate you.

But, of course, we all know … she doesn’t. And what we also know is it’s quite the opposite. Sally says he can’t just say something and expect it to change everything. But then he does … and it does. As much as this is not how she dreamed of “getting the news”, she realizes also that it’s really the transformational moment for Harry. It just fell out of him. And what comes after is a beautiful, wonderful thing.

It happens to us every morning. The Good News spills over and the Kingdom of heaven comes to you, an unforgettable moment that changes everything afterward forever … for those who truly hear it. And it makes it impossible to reject it … for personal, petty or selfish reasons. It’s a “Eureka” moment.

And then … a smile … because we know it’s true.

Wow … and that was “the substitute sermon”!?

I hope I get to hear “the really good sermon” someday. I trust it IS really good. For now, I felt privileged to have heard this one ‘cause I LOVE that scene when it just falls out of Harry .. and then, through a tear strewn face, Sally smiles … ear to ear.

That’s Good News worth sharing any day!

The Prophet Hotel

Sunday, February 22, 2009
Transfiguration of Our Lord
Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson

Readings:
2 Kings 2:1-12
2 Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9


Audio sermon file: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/17619852-4B77-5210-E9EB-255332CFA86A.mp3

Today Pastor Johnson shares the story of Elijah The Prophet and mentor and Elisha, the acolyte and protégé. Elisha is scared to death at the prospect of Elijah “movin’ on” and Elisha having to take over the mantle of his mentor.

You’ve been there. After the loss of a job or a mentor, a parent, a loved one. We can’t imagine ourselves without our parents, our jobs. A part of our self-definition is so intimately intertwined with these elements we hold so close to ourselves.

We are tired of dealing with our parents … until the moment their health is threatened or they’re taken from us.

We’ll complain about our jobs … until we think we might not have one.

We’ll make light of our health … until it’s truly threatened.

We’re sick of high school … until “the day after”.

It’s that awful “in-between” place where we’re scared to death. You can hear the voice, Pastor Johnson does it better … “Na Na A Boo Boo!” Welcome to ‘The Clock Starts Tickin’. SHUT UP! The world of Total Denial. We all can relate to wanting to hold on to high school, childhood, singlehood and a lack of responsibility and commitment, a place where we don’t have to grow up.

We can all relate to those in the Gospel who climb to the mountaintop and want to check in to the Prophet Hotel and not ‘come back down’. Who wouldn’t want to hang onto what you’ve got up there.

But … you need, we need to come down from the mountaintop and walk the crooked roads. As Pastor Johnson said the last time he preached on this text:

We have to come down “and face Monday morning”.

We’ve got work to do and it needs doing in the real world.

When Pastor Johnson’s pastor and mentor announced he was leaving their Church, he admits he was petrified, a 14 year old boy holding back the tears a 14 year old dare not show. He ran from the Church sobbing, another Elisha dreading the loss of his beloved Elijah. And when Elisha is asked what Elijah may do for him before he is taken, he asks "for a double share of Elijah’s spirit.”

Elijah replies that what Elisha asks is “a hard thing”, but it will be granted if Elisha “sees Elijahas he is taken from him”, i.e. if he “looks up”! This condition forces Elisha to LOOK UP … in order to have him see where the real power comes from. Jesus knows REAL power is hanging on the cross. Real power is in service and forgiveness. Dubbed “weakness” by this world, these are the real strength, the real power of a disciple.

Whoever you are, something in your life is changing this very morning … your relationships, your work, something. But we are not powerless in the face of change because we are not bound by this world. We do not belong to this world, but to God.

The thing that makes you want to cling to today, to not come down from the mountaintop and face Monday morning will make its way full circle. On October 7, 1973, Pastor Johnson’s old pastor flew from Boston to attend his ordination. In a powerful testimony Pastor Johnson shared that:

"It wasn't about my pastor. It was about my pastor leading me down the path I needed to travel".

You have to let go.

And, IF you let go … you and I, we get the same guarantee Elisha got …

… it’s going to be OK.

God is there to lift you up … on eagle’s wings … and carry you down the path you need to travel.

It Starts at the Bottom

Sunday, February 15, 2009
Sixth Sunday After the Epiphany
Lay Preacher: Lori George

Readings:
2 Kings 5:1-14
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Mark 1:40-45



Audio sermon file: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/5D166218-6727-4D1C-8EF2-26878294B67E.mp3


Naaman, Big Man on Campus, is seeking a cure for his leprosy. The messages of where and how come from a slave, a woman … and, later, his servants, the lowly and displaced. The message is to bathe in the Jordan seven times, the ritual of the antibiotic protocol for 10 days. Naaman had yet to learn that there are no shortcuts even for a BMOC. In the end, what we see is that Naaman is truly humbled as he is cured, free of charge. He has to learn the lesson that the lepers in the Gospel seem to know. They make their way through the crowd to reach Jesus. They know that IF it is His will, they WILL be cured.

In her first job interview at 16 years old, Lori looked up on the wall to see a metal plaque proclaiming, “Roll your works upon the Lord. Commit and trust them wholly. He will cause your thoughts to be agreeable with His will.” She got the job.

Well, a recession followed and with it the job. One year later and a new job, a new layoff, and a divorce. And that’s where Lori began to pray … and pray. That’s where, she says, her relationship with God began anew … at the bottom.

Whatever leprosy brings the Army General in you to its feet … in this encounter, you will be humbled. Humbled to face the circumstances that seem to convince us we are not, in the end, in control. These moments, Lori shares, so often come in moments of brokenness, in our depths, when we’re down and out.

And her experiences taught her to really feel what Pastor Johnson calls


“The hardest line in The Lord’s Prayer” … Thy will be done.

Lori ended beautifully with a line-by-line joining of the Lord’s Prayer with her walk through “the bottom” and out the other side. Summarizing it here would not be nearly as good as to listen to the end of this sermon. Click on the audio link and listen to the humbled traveler tell you her story.




What it did for me was remind me to go home and look at a framed photograph I keep on my desk during Lent. It is a photograph of two paper plates on which my daughter wrote her version of the Lord’s Prayer one Sunday in the pew at Mt. Zion when she was about 6 years old.







And that 6 year old still speaks to me through the glass ...
to remind me

“They will be don”

Zelig’s Letter to the Corinthians

Sunday, February 8, 2009
Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany
Preacher: Pastor Gary Johnson

Readings:
Isaiah 40:21-31
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39

Audio sermon file: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/34800BED-283C-77F5-5580-F762D094644A.mp3

In Isaiah, we run into the feeling of desperation, destinies & futures no longer in our control. Today, in a frantic world, you can also feel the desperation. You can taste it becaue it’s touched most doorsteps in one way or another. The message in Isaiah is still this:

No matter your current condition, God is SO beyond human understanding and He will deliver us … in His time.

Our relationship with God is not quid pro quo. It ALWAYS requires waiting. And not like the sign I saw two years ago in NY’s Penn Station “EXPRESS WAITING”. This waiting may actually “take some time”.

When you feel (and we all do at some point, usually “a low point”) like “Nothing ever changes!” …

In the waiting comes the strength. And in the strength comes the deliverance.

IF we don’t allow ourselves to be defined by the economic turndown, the diagnosis, the illness, we can wait for the that strength and deliverance. But when we “go it alone”, it’s too hard! When we’re surrounded by cynics, it’s almost impossible.

Paul even says, “There’s 2 kinds of people … and I’m going to ‘hang with both’ “. He’ll be whatever he needs to be to get this message across. Scientific research indicates that abbies of many species are often born resembling the father somewhat enough in order to keep him around the nest longer. We may be vain, but we “like to hang with our own”. Paul, like the Leonard Zelig character played by Woody Allen, “has the ability to transform his appearance to that of the people who surround him.”

Paul will become lie the hungry if he has to in order to deliver the message. It’s too important. It’s time to win over those “on the other side”. The Good News is we ALL have the power to do that! The message is so big the whole town shows up for Jesus … and the message is too big for one town, so Jesus takes the show on the road.

The message is BIG … bigger than the squabbling we make over race, sexual orientation, sacrificial meats, religion, gender … WAY BIGGER … and the News today is you have the power to be the courier .

The Knee Bone’s Attached to the Hip Bone

Sunday, February 1, 2009
Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn

Readings:
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28

Audio sermon file: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/292/27A4D042-92BA-8480-A9EA-6D96EEDF8348.mp3

“I don’t know anybody who’s picked this text for their wedding text. I don’t know anybody who’s picked this text for their funeral text.” So Pastor Mohn points out about today’s 2nd reading from Corinthians. It’s a text on which much preaching is apparently undertaken. It’s interesting. But Pastor Mohn takes it on with a unique perspective. We start, once again, by asking “Where’s the Good News here?”

We have people taking serious stances on “the eating of sacrificial meats” from other religions. Paul nearly becomes a Vegan for the Gospel as he sorts through the differing rationalizations run amok: it doesn’t matter because those “other Gods” don’t exist, it doesn’t matter at all, it’s only food, you name it. The disagreement is born over struggling “What’s the right thing to do?”

Paul says “It doesn’t matter. It’s not as big as we’re all making it out to be.”

“Did you ever have an argument whereby winning you ruined your relationship?”

When the need to prove one’s point overrides, we may pull out the stops. The argument can turn numerical, authoritative. Pastor Mohn points out that we’ve all walked in on conversations wed don’t feel qualified to be part of. Our reaction is to become “silent”. This is a text about living in community, about how we live together in the Body of Christ. What if the sp”qualified”. What we need to remember is without the spleen, there’s no one to recycle old blood cells without which the heart’s function is moot. We ALL play a role. And while we go about the futile enterprise of trying to measure the size of our roll, it’s the uniqueness that matters! There’s no room in a Church or any real community for the silence that accompanies someone trying to “make the argument numerical”. There’s no one who gets to walk in and say “I know more than you.” When we, collectively, have the gifts of all God’s people, there’s no room for exclusion. And our individual and unique gifts act in wonderous concert, or can, for the good of all. He knee bones connected to the hip bone.

The Good News is “We’re ALL chosen. We are ALL called.”

Even if you’ve felt “I should have been farther along. I took a wrong turn & I’m lost & way off course.” Where you are at THAT moment … God is THERE.

If you know a lot, come and share what you know. If you think you know nothing, come and share yourself. Your very presence will stir someone to say something that may reveal to you what it is you are really there to provide and share.

This can’t be preached … or taught, only experienced.

Wherever you are … up or down, down or out, lost or found, God will find you … and bring you home.

I’m Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today

Sunday, January 18, 2009
Second Sunday After the Epiphany
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn

Readings:
1 Samuel 3:1-20
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
John 1:43-51

Audio sermon file: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/742/A2A56F7E-E0B7-4998-28F9-10DA6FD6657C.mp3

In the movie Clerks, Dante Hicks is called in to cover for his supervisor on his day off. Pastor Mohn affectionately recalled his calling cry: “I’m not even supposed to be here today!” This is so often our response when we are called to something more than we feel we are ready for. Often, she admits, this battle cry is heard as the prelude to “a call”.

The thing about Samuel was “He wasn’t supposed to be there at all”. He wasn’t supposed to be born even! But God put each of us here for a purpose, each of us a blessing to the others, each endowed with an incredible gift. But to find out what that gift is? Or when God would have us use it? This is quite another thing. And we are come to know our calling through several ingenious devices …

1st … We are often “placed” in new situations, ones often not of our own choosing, often not ones we would ever willingly choose. Places “we weren’t even supposed to be in” … In dealing with these new surroundings/happenings/circumstances, we come to discover something new about ourselves …that we were, in fact, meant to “be there” for some express purpose. In the book The Alchemist, a small shepherd boy sets out to find the meaning of his life and discover “a treasure”, only to return full circle to where he began. It is here he discovers the treasure that only having traveled away would provide the perspective needed to “see” the treasure.

2nd … A call is often “echoed” in community, seen and recognized by fellow disciples, friends, … family. It isn’t often until someone else notices the gift we have that we are able to see it ourselves as they echo it back. We hear God’s calling for us in the echo of community.

3rd … It’s OK to “say no” at first. People are often surprised when God calls … “Can I do this?”

You can almost bet on a call from God being a challenge, unexpected, something that will take us out of our comfort zone ...

… and require an echo from community.

The many characters called in the Bible often refused the call the 1st time, the 2nd time … but God continues to knock on the door. God will call again … when the time is right … when we’re ready.

Samuel is called to “give his boss the very bad news” …
Abraham’s asked to sacrifice his son …
Mary’s asked to bear Jesus …
Jesus is asked to live & die for us …

When we find ourselves saying “We weren’t even supposed to be here today!!”
That “here”? … God is “there”!!!

No matter how lonely that “here” feels, we are never alone!

So when you’re ready to bust out, “I wasn’t even supposed to be here today!”

…. Oh, yes, you were …