Sermon July 26 2009

Ephesians 3:14-21
John 6:1-21

“Providence?”

“There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” (Mohandas Gandhi)

I think it’s hard to imagine what that is like unless you have lived through a time of scarcity in the general population. Right now, even if you live in poverty, in this country there is food available somewhere. Imagine the places in the world where people are hungry and there is no food anywhere near—and there are places like that in the world.

There have been times in this country of general scarcity, I know—but due to the abundance of nature, the vast amounts of land and the strength and willingness of people to hold together; we have survived those times.

In John 6, the story told reflects Jesus as the bread of life. In the narrative, the crowd gathered because they saw signs in him. The gospel of John reveals Jesus in unique ways from the other three gospels. John calls Jesus’ actions, signs because they pointed to something beyond himself. And often those who misunderstand who Jesus was also misunderstood the signs themselves. They were enthralled by the power and didn’t understand why the power was there and what it would be used for in Jesus’ life.

This story is about those kinds of misunderstandings, too. The crowd followed him around the water—hoping to see the celebrity perform. They weren’t disappointed by the wonders they saw. As the crowd gathered, Jesus knowingly asked one of his disciples how they would handle this group of hungry people. They balked at the cost of feeding these thousands, but Jesus continued by telling them how.

In these actions, if we listen carefully, we may feel a familiar reflection and rhythm.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ 6He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 7Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ 8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’

He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.

10Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all.

11Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.

14When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’
15When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

“There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”

Jesus saw the crowds gathered and wanted to reveal God to them again as God had been revealed in this Psalm. I don’t know that Jesus thought, “Ah, this looks like that psalm about God being a shepherd.” But I am sure that the author of John’s gospel heard or read this story in the other gospels and heard exactly that. It doesn’t matter who it was, we read that God provides—God provided centuries before and God provided that day as the crowds gathered around Jesus.

But in each time, the bread that nourished the body was accompanied by the bread of heaven that nourished the soul. Not only did God provide physical food, God provided spirit food—in the word that God offered through the prophets of old, in the word of God incarnate in Jesus Christ and in the word of God that still accompanies us in scripture, in experience and in practice each day.

Jesus’ compassionate response to the hungry men and women and children who gathered on the hillsides near the sea of Galilee was the sign that the people were given that day. But the compassion wasn’t what people saw—they saw the miracle of multiplication and wanted to forcibly crown him king. They missed the point of the miracle—God provides.

“There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”

Providence, as defined by some, is the wisdom, care and guidance given by God or the perception that the good we receive is God’s will. I worry sometimes that providence is misunderstood to be God’s blessing for the righteous with good things and God’s deprivation of those who have missed the mark.

Yet the biblical witness tells us that God provides for the unknowing as well as the knowing. God provides is a standard for all creation—what we do with that wisdom and knowledge is where the greatest blessing and compassion comes.

If we have been given the bread of life that is Jesus Christ, we are called upon to keep that bread alive. The bread of life that we are given is kept living—as love is kept alive by sharing it with others. The love of God exists as we receive it—through the awareness that God is always with us, in the word of God that is preached and taught in the living Body of Christ the church and in the work we do as we share that love with others.

The kind of love that we have been given is expressed by Paul’s prayer in the letter to the Ephesians. God gives all humanity and creation life, and strengthens the soul of the Christian through the power of the Spirit—by Christ living in the hearts of those who are rooted and grounded in love. The prayer continues asking for the power to understand how it is that we are filled with God through the unsurpassed love of Christ in us all.

Once we know of that life, that love—that wisdom and knowledge we are give the power to accomplish all that we are called to do.

Knowing providence isn’t just passive reception of all that is and all that maintains us life. Providence includes our Christian response to people in places without access to food, water or shelter. Providence is who and what God has called us to be here where we live and worship.

We, too, hunger for something within these walls—we hunger for the purpose that God gives. Are you hungry for life? Are you hungry for strength and energy? Are you hungry for hope?

God provides yet just like in the story we are called to respond in some way—gather and receive, then respond appropriately to the love that we have been given. I hope with Paul that we are given the power to comprehend with all those who are connected to God and what it is that fills the world to know real love, that of Christ. Let us pray that providence is made real within all the choices we make.

To God be the glory for all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Sermon July 19, 2009

2 Samuel 7:1-14a
Ephesians 2:11-22

“a place in this world. . .”
In the early years of what became known as Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), there was a feeling of ruggedness about the movement—that’s what it was. The early men and women who founded our denomination began talking and moving about in the world, discussing, arguing, making pronouncements, spouting slogans and all kinds of other things. They moved among the people on the edge of the settlement areas of the United States, the frontier or boundaries of the culture.

Some of the notable events in the movement were the participation of leadership in brush arbor revival meetings where, in these particular cases, preachers and teachers from several denominations came together to for a revival meeting. At one of these meetings Alexander Campbell described great teaching and preaching among the Methodist, Presbyterian and Christian leaders and the communion, lifting the bread and cup with simplicity of gesture and word.

The main character of these meetings was their temporal nature—they often roughed logs into seats, built pulpits and the table for sacramental purposes the same way, too. They would erect shelters of brush to shade the preacher and a few of the congregation, too. In this country, people were about movement beyond settled lands and the gospel came with them—sometimes whether they wanted it or not.

In 1811, in Kentucky at what became known as the Brush Run Church, Thomas and Alexander Campbell and many others had a church built—the first permanent structure within this movement that became the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). But for a few more decades, evangelists and preachers continued to follow the settlement of the people of this country through their forays into its frontiers or boundary country. They were, in some ways of thinking, a pretty nomadic people.

One can see this locally if you look into the early history of this congregation. Most pastors came for just a year or two at a time before moving on—though some came back and served again. This trend continued into the late 60’s when there was a longer tenured pastor than ever before. But in the origins of this denomination there is a biblical feeling of itinerancy within the clergy—though we tend to think of this as a Methodist thing, Disciples of Christ ministers, on average, move more often. In the beginnings of our denomination, preachers were often traveling evangelists, sent out from what eventually became the regional churches, founding and preaching at congregations with the local leadership of elders and deacons holding regular weekly services in their absence.

It’s no longer the frontier here in Illinois and boundaries are far beyond us geographically, we still need to be reminded of our itinerancy—that we are citizens, not primarily of this place and time, but members of God’s household deep down within us. What we do, how we live, who we care for, who we love and how we share ourselves reveals our identity as God’s children and citizens of God’s realm or kingdom.

In today’s first testament text, the Israelites have gotten settled into their new existence. It’s taken awhile, but after their 40 year sojourn in the wilderness following a few decades of slavery in Egypt, after several years hiding our from the famine in the Promised Land—they are now a kingdom, a sovereign nation. For awhile after Joshua brought them into the land of Canaan they were ruled as tribes by the judges like Deborah and Samson; they were taught by prophets and the worship of God happened as the tent of the tabernacle traveled around the land and was set up in various places.

There is now a king because the people insisted that’s what they needed despite God’s warning. Now there is a capital because David saw the advantage to bringing the seat of religion and the seat of government together in one place. The tabernacle no longer traveled, but the tent was permanent fixture in Jerusalem. The king has a palace of cedar and the people are getting quite established, no longer primarily a people of nomadic shepherds, but farmers, merchants, traders, etc. They have homes, vineyards and farms. They have houses, shops and walls for their city. David begins to think that God has settled down, too, that God is somehow reflecting the actions of the people—that God has been led into an institutional existence. Now, he think, wouldn’t it be nice gesture to give God a beautiful home to live in—cedar, gold leaf, pretty fixtures, organ pipes and all? So he poses the question to his prophet, Nathan, who says, off hand—without consulting God—go ahead, build God a house.

That night when Nathan dreamed, he was told something very different. God said, “Oh, no, David will not build me a house—I am God, I build David a house; it will be a house without end.” In these words of God—the word given to the prophet—we can hear that God extends God’s hand of care primarily God’s creation, not the other way around.

If you search the scriptures for references to disloyalty to God, the accusation is not that the people aren’t taking care of God, but that they aren’t relying on God for their needs. When the people of Israel wander away from God, long after these events of 2 Samuel, the problem is that they do not trust God to care for them. Sometimes they accused of relying too much on their own cleverness, cutting measurements too close or cheating; sometimes they reach out to a strong military power to ally with them as they did in the events that lead to exile in Babylon.

God promises David that David’s house, David’s lineage will be built by God. God promises that God will discipline when the house of David strays—God will take care of them, will be a parent to these children.

As human cultures develop, God knows that they move through a succession of need—we first need the basics to survive, just like individuals: food, water, shelter and companionship; as cultures or societies next there is a need for common belief and practice and then there is a time where those belief and practice become solidified into institution—temple worship, church establishment, government centralization, common laws and properties, etc.

Once the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) became a more established movement, they moved toward denominational establishment, though it took more than a century for that to become true in name, when in 1968, the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) through a “restructure” became the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It’s normal and natural to move toward stable institution—there is a clear biblical realization in this process as the worship of Yahweh God went from a traveling, opportunistic worship. There are numerous stories where people built altars wherever they were; remember Noah’s altar after the flood, Abraham’s altars at various moment, including the one where God had told him to sacrifice his son and Jacob’s altar where he had a dream of angels descending and ascending a ladder or stairway into heaven.

Once the Hebrew people were established in Canaan, there were certain places around the land where the tabernacle was set up within the tribal lands—sometimes believed to be where the ancestors like Noah, Abraham and Jacob worshiped. The next step of religious establishment and centralization was the movement of the tabernacle to Jerusalem permanently, though it was still a tent-like structure. God seems resigned to the idea that someone will permanently house God’s throne in a building, but not yet. Now, it’s important that God make a statement. God’s statement, “I will house you; I will care for you; I am God, you are not.”

Making the house of God the focus—imagining that God can be housed—is not an idea that God likes very much. But God knows, very well, that we need a house; God knows, very well, that we need roots; God know, very well, that we need a place in this world to be established. God also know, very well, that we need to remember that the place is not the important thing. What is important is that God dwells within us whatever the place or the state of the place.

We can hear this clearly in the description of a people who do not stay in one place—who never stay in one location very long.
The Maasai people are nomadic – that is, they travel from place to place, settling in one location temporarily before it is time to move on. When they move, they take with them only one thing: their cows, which are considered sacred.
One day, some Christian missionaries from Europe decided that the Maasai people needed to hear the gospel. And so, the missionaries came to the land of the Maasai and did what they traditionally did: they built a church. They told the Maasai that the church building was an important place to come and worship God.
The Maasai people were excited, and they came to church. They worshipped and celebrated and knew God. But, when it was time for the nomadic Maasai to leave this location, they left this place of worship behind and wandered into the desert to find a new place to call home. The Christian missionaries were confused, and wondered what had happened. Didn’t the Maasai people like this church? How could they leave it behind so easily?
The missionaries searched until they found the same group of Maasai people again, living in a new place. The relieved missionaries build a new church there and invited the Maasai to come. For a time, the Maasai people came and worshipped and celebrated and knew God.
But, one day, the Maasai left their new place of worship and wandered into the desert again to find a new home. This time the missionaries were upset. They had now built two churches that the Maasai had walked away from. The Maasai seemed happy to be in church; why would they leave it for the desert?
The missionaries looked around again until they found the new location where the Maasai were not living. And, for the first time, they asked the Maasai why they kept leaving the church house. Wasn’t God’s house important to them? Didn’t they respect the church?
And, for the first time, the Maasai responded. They said they loved God and they were excited about God’s promises. But, they said, they didn’t need a structure in order to worship God. They would always move from place to place. Buildings have never been important to them.
What is important, the Maasai explained, is that they carry God with them in their hearts. And so God’s place is always with them. As they move from place to place, they worship God and celebrate when they come together – with great joy in the open land – without a building. They carry symbols in their minds, God in their hearts, and celebrate their place in God’s household.
Then, the Maasai asked the missionaries, “If God is always with you, why is a church building so important?” [1]

I don’t say this to promote the idea that we don’t need a place of worship—but to put our places of worship, places of living, boundaries of nations, and God’s presence in this world and beyond into a kind of perspective. What is of first importance to God? How do we decide how we use our resources for living, for worship, for caring for creation and one another? What is our place in this world? Where do we rest, settled and where do we move, drawn from place to place?

God walks with us; God is carried within. Let us seek God’s way of life, putting God’s priorities first—wherever we are.
To the glory of God: Creator, Redeemer and Friend. Amen.


[1]Adele Halliday, a member of The Presbyterian Church in Canada, is an African-Canadian educator and has served as writer of youth resources for Seasons of the Spirit. She currently works in the area of racial, ethnic, and intercultural ministries with The United Church of Canada.

Sermon July 12 2009

Sermon July 12 2009
2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19
Psalm 24
Ephesians 1:3-14
Mark 6:14-29
“What’s with the Attitude?
My mother loved to dance. She told me this on several occasions, but I never really saw her do it. I have often wondered how she felt when she danced—was it joy? Was this the time when she could be herself? What made her want to dance? What feelings were behind the dancing? My sister also loves to dance—dancing offers freedom of movement and a time of expression.

I’ve never danced much—but I didn’t have the same opportunities that people had in my mother’s generation, I think. Dances, in my mother’s day, were family events. Dances, when I was growing up, were dark and sultry and felt a little dangerous. I don’t think I had the same opportunity to love it like my mother and sister did because of the years between us.

But dancing is a biblical expression of joy—people have always danced in spiritual ecstasy. Before David danced, the people of Israel danced as Miriam sang songs of praise at the Red Sea. Before David danced, people everywhere danced at weddings and in times of praising God. But David’s dancing was noted, his story was told because David’s dancing expressed how David felt about God—passionate and intense. It also expressed the joy and love that God felt in David. It was a reflection of David’s knowledge and intimate relationship with God—dancing was David’s way of expressing God’s presence in him.

What’s interesting about this dance is that it wasn’t really an acceptable way of worshiping God according to some of the laws and standards of those who kept temple ways. According to some laws, David dancing around the Ark of the Covenant in only his loin cloth—or linen ephod, as the Bible says—was prohibited. In the priestly rules of conduct written once the ark had a temple, a priest wasn’t even supposed to step up onto a step to approach the ark, lest he accidentally flash the ark under his robes. It was a serious thing, this Ark of the Covenant business—once it had and institution and a temple and rules. But this scene in 2 Samuel occurs before all that—the Ark, this day of David’s dancing was a thing of beauty, joy and a symbol of their faithful history and walk with God.
According to tradition, this ark contained the tablets of covenant that God gave Moses on the mountain, the bronze snake that Moses lifted in the wilderness, a sample of Manna in a jar and other symbols of God’s work in the history of Israel. Law, healing, sustenance, protection—these were represented. And the people had experience the ark as an object of power—when people were near it they felt the presence of God. Joy came spontaneously because this box reminded them of the stories they told of God and of God’s servants.

It may have eventually promoted an attitude of some awe; but in these early days before the temple was built, the ark brought forth feelings of jubilation, elation and delight. The people sang and hope filled them when their leader was full of the attitude they could see came directly from God.

In the words of the story there is an attitude of jubilation that needs expression—as Jesus said, quoting scripture, if the people do not sing, the rocks themselves will cry out. The presence of God evokes joy—promotes an attitude of hope and movement toward wholeness.

A medieval mystic named Mechtild, as a part of a very large group of writings—wrote this prayer expressing her joy at God’s presence and leading.

I cannot dance, O Lord,
unless you lead me.
If you will
that I leap joyfully
then you must be the first to dance
and sing.

Then, and only then,
will I leap for love.
Then I will soar
from love to knowledge,
from knowledge to fruition,
from fruition to beyond
all human sense.


And there
I will remain
and circle forevermore.

Imagine what she must have experienced in God’s presence to express her feelings so exuberantly and with such faith. She was the member of a wealthy family who had experienced vision as a child—she was guided by members of the church, but when she began to criticize some of the leadership she needed protection and guidance. So when she was grown she entered a convent to protect her from the institutions that wanted rules more than experience.

And it wasn’t something she planned or even asked for—she often felt plagued by her visions because they carried with them knowledge of God’s work in her life and the life of the faithful. They carried wisdom and knowledge of God’s love for her—that’s what she wrote about and sang about. Her dancing was often metaphorical—it was the dance of her spirit—though that did not mean she did not dance in body as well. And that may have upset the religious authorities as well—physical movement in religious women was seen as a source of sin rather than religious devotion.

David danced and the people danced along—his joy in dance and music was a part of the reason that many believe he wrote the psalms. David’s dance expressed an attitude of joy at God’s continuing presence—through Israel’s history and at his moment in time.

What attitude do we express as we dance through life, whether we are quiet, faithful, loud, disgusted, exuberant, joyful, enlightened or confused ? What attitude to we reveal to God, to others and to ourselves?

The attitude of a dance can be different depending on movement, internal motivation and circumstance. Dancing at a wedding expresses love, joy and hope. Dancing as entertainment can be anything from story-telling to seduction.

Dance, in my way of thinking is one way of talking about life. What does the dance we are dancing tell those who watch it. Do we dance just to get through life as quickly and painlessly as possible? Or does the dance express a particular meaning? Do we dance to celebrate the life that God has given us or do we dance to the music of power and corruption, of seduction and sin?

In Mark’s gospel there is another story about dance that ends in destruction and death for John the baptist. The attitude expressed by the supposed royalty and leadership in Jerusalem is revealed in this story. Some fill in the blanks of the story with details of Herod’s wife and treachery—with her ideas of treachery of a premeditation of John’s murder. I don’t think that was necessary. But the dance itself was one probably meant to entice corrupt power rather than to give glory to the power of God. The purpose of the dance—the attitude of movement was seduction, not solely of a man—but of the power he had taken.

The dance she danced was caused by Herod’s dance of death begun long before that night in his palace—the dance began in Herod’s father’s time when he murdered to maintain his power. This Herod murdered and threatened his brothers and stole his brother Philip’s wife.

The dance of death is not the attitude that God desire from us either—to dance is not enough. We are called to life—Jesus came, in his words, “that we may have life and have it abundantly.” That is the dance that Jesus brings—as he reveals the God that loved Moses, Joshua, even Saul, David and Solomon. He revealed again and again the God who wanted to love us into discipleship—to draw us to God’s very own self. We are called to dance the dance of God’s love for us.

Let us pray again with Mechtild of Magdeburg:

I cannot dance, O Lord,
unless you lead me.
If you will
that I leap joyfully
then you must be the first to dance
and sing.
Then, and only then,
will I leap for love.
Then I will soar
from love to knowledge,
from knowledge to fruition,
from fruition to beyond
all human sense.
And there
I will remain
and circle forevermore.
Amen.

Sermon July 5 2009

“Our Best Intentions”
Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage
where the grapes of wrath
are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning
of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
Julia Ward Howe wrote the words to this hymn in the middle of the American Civil War as a response to her warlike surroundings. She believed that slavery had to end, but wondered at the means by which changes were being made.

She wrote it in wondering at the death that accompanied the war—and then shortly after the war she lobbied for a day to honor mothers, to remember the effect of death on those mothers as they mourned the loss of sons, brothers and husband. Her idea of Mothers’ Day wasn’t simply honoring mothers, but to rally mothers as opponents to war.

Yet I find it interesting that we sing this song to a very martial tune—the music sounds like soldiers marching. And the words speak of Jesus’ triumph over evil in militaristic terms, but God is the one marching—her words convey that Jesus destroys, or tramples out anger, wrath, or war. And her idea’s come from Jesus’ words of truth, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
I have read a fiery gospel,
writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemnors,
so with you my grace shall deal;

We know things about the gospel that we seem to be afraid to stand by—we know Jesus preached love for all believers. We really do understand that Jesus wanted our lives to be guided by the actions he took—meeting injustice with righteous anger, but not violence. He met persecution with grace and with words of truth and conviction, but did not resist violence with violence.

God works in the ways that you have experienced, read about and lived. What God calls you to do is to share those ways, understand how you have been blessed by them and reveal it. At church we have the opportunity to learn the language to share that—and then go out and speak of our faith.

Yet sometimes the places where we would expect the most support and opportunity to learn are the places where we assume we are least welcome to be ourselves. In the gospel text today, we read that Jesus experienced a lack of welcome from people who had known him from childhood because they had a certain set of expectations fro him and they found another set as he spoke and taught them.

They seemed to expect the rough hewn carpenter—a man who worked with his hands and not with words. They knew his family of origin—a set of ordinary people, some ornery, some quiet, just like all families—and they probably expected him to be the typical elder brother. He hadn’t stayed around to take care of his mother—or the rest of his siblings. He had chosen to travel around the country learning about the Jewish people—about the chosen people of God. He had walked with people of other regions and learned from rabbis and teachers in other parts of the land. He had spent time in the wilderness in contemplation and fasting—communing with God as many of those in his hometown had not. They thought he was a little odd, I’m sure, and he was not what they thought he should be, let alone what they would expect from him.

I would venture to guess that the friends and neighbors of his mother and siblings thought he had fallen down on his duty to his family. How could they listen to someone who didn’t express tradition and faith as they thought he should? What if all their assumptions about God’s expectations were not as narrow and concrete as they thought they were?

The familiar, ordinary assumptions about many of the aspects in our faith lives are often challenged the more we learn about the Jesus’ life and what he taught about priorities and essentials in life. For instance, as the people of Israel developed as a nation they also developed particular hopes for the one who would save them—the Messiah. They expected a leader of troops, like David.

David had been chosen by God as a young shepherd boy—and anointed by the people of Israel, in today’s text from 2 Samuel, when he was somewhat proven as a general in battle. Only when he fit the expectation of a military power did the nation approve—but his faith and exuberance in matters of faith. In later stories, when David danced in front of the altar, exposing himself to the altar though it was forbidden. Despite David’s habitual tendency to flaunt lawful choices, the biblical witness still says that God favored him because he kept succeeding.

The people of Israel expected David’s martial talent, they wanted a man who would organize them into a force to free them from Rome’s oppression. I’ve said this before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but Jesus wasn’t the military leader they wanted—he rejected that kind of power in his life. Though he revealed God’s power, he didn’t use it to gather and army to overthrow the Roman’s militarily—instead we know that he overthrew the power of death by succumbing to death and defeating by returning to life. His death turned the power of death on its head. Only by succumbing to death could he show that it was powerless in the face of God’s power.

Often our best intentions to follow the life of Christ means we take his life seriously and as our own. And it means that we are called to follow his teachings, his example and his intentions for us even if they aren’t what we expect they should be. And I suspect that the expectations we have don’t fit exactly what God wants for us—and I also suspect that our best intentions for following are exactly what God wants for us. We are called to do our best, not because it is less than God wants, but because it is exactly what God wants. I also suspect that God loves us so deeply that our attempts to please God are often what pleases God.

The Battle Hymn of the Republic was written by Julia Ward Howe in a similarly vein. It speaks of the work of Christ in military terms, but it guides people away from solving problems through fighting.
I have read a fiery gospel,
writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemnors,
so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman,
crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on."
She uses biblical images to establish the idea that it is Christ who will defeat evil—it’s not our job to destroy others. The sword of God’s word cuts sharp and true, but it does not destroy; it refines and cuts away the falseness. The sword is wielded only by Christ and destroys only death, even according to the scriptures that speak of the sword.

The Christ’s witness exists within our lives as we live out his ministry in our lives—at least as we do out best to do so. We are called to be Christ in the world, not just to be good to one another who live within the church. We are called to carry the teachings that we receive here, at this way station of faith and carry those things in our lives as we interact with others.

One of the ways that I think people of faith have always missed God’s point when it comes to carrying out God’s will in their lives is by making an experience of God a permanent fixture. Yet that’s often how people respond to God once God makes God’s self known to them. We build structures that commemorate our experiences—or we create institutions to make our experiences seem more real to us. But when we solidify those experiences, we create limitations for the ways in which God works. Institutions, buildings, rituals and practices can be used to help us remember the story of God and continue telling it, but they can also become the ends instead of the means.

We are blessed by God’s presence, the love of Christ and the communion of the Holy Spirit as we walk this journey of faith with the best of intentions—with the intention to share the peace we have in Jesus Christ, the intention to live the love that Jesus brought to us, the intention to hold Jesus before us as an example.

We cannot be perfect—to attempt perfection is the sin of idolatry. If we are perfect, we have no need of redemption and salvation. Let make the best of our intentions to be faithful, to be loving, to be the presence of Christ in the lives of those we meet. But we have to let the savior be the savior, not take that job for ourselves.

As we are called to live for Christ and share his love, let us live and share what we know, that Christ will do what Christ has been called to do.

As Christians we are called to believe this world can be a place of hope:
where power is shared;
where all have clean water and enough to eat;
where there is concern and action
to secure freedom and justice.
We are called to believe in God’s way of love and peace,
and to proclaim it.
We are called to believe this world can be a place of peace:
where love triumphs over war;
where people of different faiths
live together in good will;
where there is unity among neighbors.
We are called to believe in God’s way of love and peace,
and to proclaim it.
We are called to believe this world can be a place of truth:
where words of honesty are heard
more often than words of propaganda;
where there is honor among those who govern;
where integrity guides our daily lives.
We are called to believe in God’s way of love and peace,
and to proclaim it. (from Seasons of the Spirit, July 5 2009, copyrighted material)

To the glory of God, only to God—present in Christ and powerful in the Spirit. Amen.

June 28 2009

Opening the word with All Ages June 28 2009
Over years of church attendance and participation—or through painful experiences in other groups—many of us have come to believe that only a certain narrow range of emotions are acceptable to God. We have gotten the idea, somehow, that God loves us or approves of us more when our feelings are mild—when we are happy, not overjoyed; when we are disapproving, not angry; when we are temporarily sad, not chronically depressed or mourning. And we somehow have been convinced that church is not a place where we can express our deepest emotions—because they make other people uncomfortable.

While I would agree that we still aren’t in a place where we are completely comfortable sharing all of our feelings in church gatherings—as far as I am aware. Church is often like any other public place, we filter our expression of feeling and we may even try and filter what we express to God, or we’d like to.

One of the tools professionals use to help children talk about their feelings is called a feeling faces chart. I’m passing a few around. They help children see expressions on faces and identify which ones show how they feel inside—it helps doctors, therapists and others to understand what is going on with those who don’t have the vocabulary to describe it.

I wonder sometimes if we need to be reminded that God has goaded us, at times this way. The Psalms themselves often function as a way of urges us to be honest about who we are and how we feel with God.

In today’s psalm, we hear the psalmist confidence that God is listening—while pleading with God to listen. There is trust and uncertainty, almost in the same breath
1Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
2 Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!
7O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
The psalmist is almost frantic—I am drowning here, God, help me now . . . get me out of this situation. I know you listen because otherwise none would survive. Yet the writer also assures that no matter how we might interpret the situation otherwise: God loves and God redeems from oppression: to pain, to other people, to anything other than dedication to God.

5I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.
In these words there is urgency for answers and there is awareness that God’s time comes when it is supposed to, not before: I am drowning—get me out of this pit of death, hear me, hear me! And then . . . Yet I await you and cannot hurry your action any more than I can hurry the sunrise . . .

In those feelings are the awareness that God will do what needs to be done and the knowledge that what God does may not be exactly what the psalmist would do or may even want. But those mixed feelings are expected and are often expressed by those who wrote the psalms. The emotional lives of human beings have always been complicated when facing the diverse situations that living brings. People are born and we are happy, as they grow and change inevitably, they will hurt others. Sometimes they hurt purposefully and sometimes involuntarily and they will be hurt. Parents are hurt by their children and they hurt their children. When parents and their offspring are adults those things get more complicated as roles change—even to the point where sons and daughters must begin taking care of their parents’ health care decisions, finances or even where they live.

But all of those feelings are welcome in God’s house, wherever we are worshiping—and in the words that we speak to God. God, after all, is aware of our internal workings and of the situations in which we find ourselves. God knows when the circumstances we live in are of our own making—when we have made bad choices that threaten to destroy us. God knows when others have built a world of pain around us—when we have been abused or coerced. God knows when we have done our very best—when forces beyond the locale we find ourselves in surround us.

God also knows when our happiness seems to simply roll upon us without an effort of our own. The feelings of gratitude, sorrow, joy, anger, boredom, fear, respect, or anything else are welcome to God’s ears, God’s heart and God’s loving arms.

Nothing that we feel needs to be hidden from God—and I hope, as a church, we are moving to a place where all of those feelings can be shared with one another. We don’t need to hide what we are angry about—we don’t need to share petty annoyances when we have genuine concerns. We can say no when we feel it and mean it so that we can say yes when we truly feel God’s call—not simply say yes because someone asks.

We all need to have a place and time when we can connect most intimately with another—where we can trust that we will continue to be valued—where we can reach out with our need and know that we will be accepted and that our need will be addressed. The people who surround Jesus—who saw his community of disciples—were able to see this.

Let us be assured that God welcomes our feelings, our thoughts and the words we speak –and share that welcome with those who are also in need. Let us be genuine and sincere disciples of Jesus, the one who felt the need of others and embraced them with an open heart and mind.

To the glory of our creator and redeemer. Amen.

Sermon June 21 2009

Sermon June 21 2009
1 Samuel 17:32-49
Psalm 9:9-20
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
Mark 4:35-41
“Protect and Save—Enduring in Love”
She called in the middle of the night—afraid and desperate. In her desperation and fear, she threatened to kill herself. I didn’t really know what to do, but since this wasn’t the first such phone call I’d gotten from her, I had gotten advice from someone more experienced who had said, “Make a deal. Make her promise to wait until morning. Maker her promise to wait for something—anything—so that this moment in time will have passed.”

Fear of the pain that she felt every day motivated her to take her life. Love of life—innate to humanity motivated her to call me first. Fear that I wasn’t the answer to her problems—true—made her continue to bargain with me. Some kind of affection made her keep her word until morning.

But I believe that she also feared loss of my friendship and she used threats of suicide to manipulate my friendship, too. I truly think that she wanted to be my friend—to love me in that friendship, but life’s circumstances and her mental health didn’t allow her to love authentically.

And when love is corrupted by fear, bad things happen—at least in my experience.

Poet, philosopher and cartoonist Michael Leunig wrote that:
There are only two feelings. Love and fear.
There are only two languages. Love and fear.
There are only two activities. Love and fear.
There are only
two motives, two procedures,
two frameworks, two results. Love and fear.
Love and fear.

Though I read this poem only this week—the more I experience people, the more truth I hear in its words. Love and fear are behind it almost all of the decisions we make.

When the Philistine Goliath walked onto the battlefield—he was there to promote the fear of the Israelites, and it seemed to be working. Or that’s the impression I’ve always had of this story. He shouted and insulted them, his size intimidated them. They were so effected by his actions that they did nothing in the face of his bluster. The bible says, “they were dismayed and greatly afraid.”

David, in his characteristic way, enthusiastically and—Saul argued—foolishly, decided he was the champion that God wanted. As a battle hardened shepherd, he wanted to take on the warrior himself. He took his inferior weapon, his inadequate and in reality nonexistent armor depended upon God to defend him—as he believed God had always done before. Saul was willing to let him because he was the only choice. He was motivated by his love for God and his belief that God loved him.

The reaction of the rest of Israel—as told by the writer of 1 Samuel—came out of fear. They worried, “dismayed,” and they were paralyzed. David’s interpretation was that their hearts were failing. To me—that’s a good definition of fear, failing hearts. Courage comes from the Latin for heart—so its opposite is lack of heart—it’s discouragement or fear. Lack of fear is love. Lack of love is fear.

I wonder if these two are a good way of describing opposing forces in the world—some are largely motivated by love; some are essentially motivated by fear. In the geopolitical world, those governed by unstable leadership without any real authority, who may use their volatile power to abuse rather than govern are full of people who live in fear. The authority of their leadership is corrupt or unreliable—so crime may be rampant. The authority of their leadership comes from the ability to threaten, torture or abuse those who disagree, so fear motivates adherence to law instead of a belief in God’s influence in a stable society and culture.

We can look around the world and see large nation states where the existence and results of love and fear are very clearly lived. And in most countries there is a combination of love and fear in the daily existence of its citizens—love of that particular culture and society may motivate somewhat and fear, too, of legal authority. In stable places and times, when concern of people for one another and the desire that all succeed and self-interest is in control then love is behind our actions.

We are also moved and provoked by love and fear in our individual lives—perhaps more so. We often behave toward one another because of love and fear. Our relationships with one another as human beings are certainly influenced by love and fear—as are our individual and communal relationships with God.

In our relationships with one another fear and love interact to guide us—from moment to moment we are moved by one or the other, but hopefully we have learned that we live in God’s love and really have no need to be ruled by fear. But what do we do when the people and events around us seem to be changing rapidly and we feel a lot of fear?

The letter we know as 2 Corinthians expresses the thoughts and feelings of early Christians who were surrounded by difficult personal and community situations. The world of the time was much different from the one we know. They had reason to fear their rulers because many were not protected by the laws of Rome, but were often persecuted by them. Many were slaves within that system and others—by serving Christ—were ostracized. They did not participate in some of the expected civic ceremonies because most were centered on worship of the Roman Republic in the form of the emperor and the gods that represented the values of that state.

These Christians lived hard lives described as afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger and they endured by sticking to the principles—the ethic—that guided their lives as God’s children: purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God. They were obvious not enduring because they were afraid and hid their principles—they did not act out of fear, but with genuine love, as they say.

They understood that the love of God was not expressed by the majority response to their identity as believers in Christ—that the hard times were not an indication that they should be something other than Christian, but that they endured the hard times through the love and salvation that God had already given them in those days and nights of hardship, pain and violence.

The Corinthians needed assurance that despite the hardships of the leaders who wrote to them—those leaders were still responding to them in love and not fear. They were encouraged to lived out of the love that they had as a gift of God and revealed to them in these leaders who wrote these words to them.

The Corinthian church was a group of people on the edge of learning how to be followers of Jesus. They were being led from a distance by a group of men and women who were learning about being disciples and teaching others all at the same time—as all Christians are called to do. The letters that their founders and leaders wrote were to reveal that despite pain and hardship, the love of God remained. The founders and leaders wrote that the love of God and the fruits of the Spirit that God gave them would carry them through. They had to be reassured that God had already saved them—the day they walked into God’s open arms; they simply needed to remember that love and not be ruled by the fear. They would endure through love—not by fighting or hiding or running in fear. They would endure because they remained with God—and their survival was not a matter of God’s presence or absence.

In our daily walk as disciples of Jesus Christ, we are probably not called to face the exact kinds of hardship that those early believers did—but we do face difficult times when what we rely on is changing. Sometimes those changes are good—but any kind of change may inspire fear in us. But it is important, when we face those changes that we don’t act out of the fear, but realize that love is more powerful in our lives.

Sometimes the changes that we face have nothing to do with a challenge to our faith—but the responses that we make to those changes will be the difference between revealing the love in our lives and showing how much fear rules us.

As Jesus walked among the disciples, he taught them about God in very different ways than they had been taught by others. As the disciples were in the boat with Jesus in the gospel lesson, they had learned that God wanted wholeness in the lives of those persecuted by sickness and fear because Jesus healed the sick and exorcised those plagued by spiritual and mental diseases. They had learned through Jesus’ teachings about the God’s household or kingdom through parables of reassurance—mustard seeds—for example, what looks insignificant is the most important. The light of the world cannot be denied or hidden. God’s kingdom grew without force of humanity—and would thrive beyond those who simple wanted the power and control of the law without the mercy and compassion that God had always offered human beings.

This day, the day of the story in the gospel, the disciples had to face the power of God that was in Jesus. As the wind whipped around and the waves rocked the boat, they wondered if they were going to die. They wondered if God really loved them. They were afraid and wondered if Jesus really cared because he was sleeping in this horrible time. They wanted commiseration, I guess, but what they got was the power of God in the voice of Jesus. And that was a little scary, too.

But in this moment, the power of God and the love of the household of God came together. They still had a long journey of discovery and discipleship before they were ready to reveal God in Jesus Christ—eventually that would happen. They had to hold onto the love that Jesus brought them. They couldn’t stand on the fear of the changes that Jesus was bringing into their lives. If they wanted what Jesus had to offer, they couldn’t run from all that Jesus said and did. They had to act out of the love of God that Jesus offered them in the kingdom of God. They had to learn not to act out of the fear that God was about punishment, not about justice.

When fear runs our lives, we tend to hate the things that make us fearful. When we fear change, we hate those who change or offer change. We may even hate what we perceive as change—we fear the implications of changes in others. We may even think we hate the person who changes for the good, because it makes us change our relationship with that person.

Jesus inspired love in those who followed him—but in this moment in the gospel of Mark, the disciples had to decide who it was that they were following and what it meant? Were they guided by fear—hating the changes that Jesus brought? Or were they guided by love—realizing that Jesus revealed God’s love for them?

What is your choice?

Sermon June 7 2009

Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 29
Romans 8:12-17
John 3:1-17
“The Mystery of the Sacred”
We affirm and celebrate the mystery God.
Creator of vast galaxies,
yet still creating with passion in our midst;
Source of all life and goodness.

This Sunday after Pentecost is known as Trinity Sunday—a celebration of the mystery of God. The trinity is a celebration of mystery because this way of understanding God is not logical, so it keeps us from thinking we can God so well we don’t have to listen anymore.

Trinitarian doctrine is about describing how it is that humanity has experienced God throughout the thousands and thousands of years of human history. God has always been known in diverse ways—creator, law-giver, God of the land of Israel, God without boundaries, in a human called Jesus, in the men and women who gathered to understand how God as revealed in Jesus—through the wind, fire and leading of the Holy Spirit. God is expressed as people like Paul were transformed and established a following for the ways of Jesus.

We do celebrate the mystery God because it means that God isn’t bound by limitations that we imagine exist. When people make a false distinction between God’s creation of the universe and the continuing creation that we all know and can see, we are imagining a limitation for the God that has made possible all that we are. God continues to create—God has set in motion a process of creation that is without limitation. God has created within all creation a way of adapting to the changes that happen around us. God has created and continues to create moving us into a future that only God knows.

I have a feeling that we often think of God, creator, father or mother, God of the Old Testament, as “The God,” whereas the other aspects or persons of God may be seen as slightly less than the “Big God.” But the idea of creator, progenitor/father, source of life/mother, is simply meant to describe the most ancient way that people encountered God around them. The earliest questions about existence were answered by these encounters: Where did we come from? How did we come to be here? Who is responsible for our existence? How does it all work?

So as people understood more and more how the living things around them fit together—they knew that God loved this creation. The ancestors of the people who eventually wrote the books describing God’s creation, knew God in such a way that meant God was delighted by the living world that surrounded them. They saw the joy and approval that God felt in the beauty around them. They also saw that some of the actions of humanity were not within the beauty that God has intended and heard truth in stories of God’s anger and judgment. The God of the ancients has come to be known to us through the word’s of witness in the First Testament—especially those in the first 5 books of the Bible.

The kind of wonder and power that we feel when we ponder the act of creation means that we may put those actions of God above all of the other acts of God that people have experienced—yet we cannot forget that God’s act of creation continues as plants and animals, microscopic living things and even people adapt and develop.

God has created—God creates—God always will create.

We confess Jesus the Christ,
as the Wisdom of God,
and embodiment of love.
Our compassionate healer
and peace within our restlessness.

In some us, Jesus as human and Jesus as God, is beyond what our minds can grasp. It is, to be honest, beyond what most, MINDS, can grasp—it is, however, not our minds that need to understand, but our hearts and souls, even our physical selves. It is in John’s gospel today that we hear confusion about God and humanity—or spirit and flesh—and how we describe our experience of God within Jesus, within ourselves and even within other people.

Yet when we speak of God within flesh, we are describing how God speaks to us, to our minds—like when we talk about Jesus’ teaching his disciples or when we describe Jesus’ authority when commanding creation. It’s still mysterious—the eternal God within mortal human flesh and the eternal teaching understood within short-term contexts, like stories and particular encounters with Jesus.

The writer of John’s gospel, after receiving the stories of Jesus, saw in him the incarnation of God—even as God created the world. The prologue to John’s gospel describes the Word of God—another name for Jesus—eternally existing with God and creating with God. And God created, according to Genesis, by word, by logos or logic in Greek, or in another language, by Wisdom. The author of John heard these words in Proverbs and realized that Jesus, as experienced by his followers, inhabited them.
1Does not wisdom call,
and does not understanding raise her voice?
2On the heights, beside the way,
at the crossroads she takes her stand;
3beside the gates in front of the town,
at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
4‘To you, O people, I call,
and my cry is to all that live.
30I was beside him, like a master worker;
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
31rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the human race.
Though wisdom is described as a woman—because the word wisdom in Greek is feminine, Jesus, was so connected to God that he revealed this to those who followed him.

His expression of God was so unmatched that people came to him to experience God. They didn’t necessarily understand it, but they felt God in his presence. Nicodemus is an example of how people tried to understand who Jesus was as he walked through their lives.

He revealed God as he taught and as he healed them. He revealed God as he touched the lonely person and those in mourning. He revealed God when he gave the women and men around him a reasons to celebrate God and God’s joy at the lives of humanity.

Imagine the story from the perspective of Nicodemus.

“We kept hearing about this self-proclaimed Rabbi from the north; a gatherer of crowds and showy miracle worker. A common laborer I would have thought, untrained and unskilled in the important matters of religion. And yet, the more we heard, the more our curiosity and interest grew. There was something different and real at play here, something that finally made me search him out.

“So, under the cover of darkness, I found my way to Jesus and confessed my growing admiration. His response, if you could call it that, totally floored me. He wasn’t flattered at all! He calmly suggested that unless one is born anew, they couldn’t see the reign of God. Born anew, I thought, what has that got to do with anything practical or significant? “Can I enter a second time into my mother’s womb?” I asked, thinking I’d made a valid point. He persisted, though, with an increasingly astute teaching about spirit, water, and the loving nature of God; all of which made me think deeply about my own faith. “How can this be?” I wondered. To which he responded with an authority I’d rarely heard before: “Are you not a teacher of Israel, yet you do not understand such things?” For once, I was at a loss for words.

“Such matters of the heart and spirit have often escaped my attention. Not that they haven’t been there for me to consider and then teach to others. No, it has been more a matter of keeping the religious wheels turning and making sure all the “important” things are being done dutifully, practically, and, of course, on time. His candid words have shaken my foundations. Yet his wise presence has given rise to new hope.”

Nicodemus heard of his charisma—the gifts and teaching, but wanted to see it himself. And the experience he had illustrated Jesus’ perspective on the spirituality of God’s relationship with humanity and he expressed in such a way that opened Nicodemus eyes. Wisdom often presses us beyond what we think we know into areas where only the experience of God allows us to live without confusion. Nicodemus came to Jesus under cover of darkness because he didn’t know or understand—Jesus was there to shed light on his lack of understanding. I think he eventually arrived in the light because he was one of the faithful who helped in Jesus’ burial.

I think he didn’t understand completely—but he heard the wisdom of Jesus’ words. He heard God as he spoke to him.

And we open ourselves to the Spirit.
One who joyfully wings before us
to lead us on life’s journey;
God’s generous gift of comfort and truth.
We are people of the living, saving God,
pilgrims in our quest for wholeness and joy.
Entrusted with good news and filled with faith and love,
we will create communities of welcome and care,
we will seek to be lights
of justice, peace, and hope.

Though we often think of the Holy Spirit in connection with Pentecost as the women and men who followed Jesus experienced the wind and fire of the Spirit—we can look at the story of God’s work in humanity and realized that humanity had experienced the Spirit for thousands of years. The wind or Spirit of God blew over creation—even before the voice of God spoke. The wind or Spirit of God blew over the waters of the flood, revealing God’s creation once again. The fire and wind of God accompanied the Israelites as they crossed the desert. The wind of God entered the dead bones of Ezekiel’s vision of renewed life.

And the Holy Spirit came upon Mary as she conceived. The Holy Spirit came in the form of a Dove and claimed Jesus as God’s Beloved Son at Jesus baptism. Yet Jesus continued to accompany the women and men who had followed him after he had left them in bodily form—and so the Spirit had given them the opportunity of experiencing God in such a way that was unique to the newly forming church. They had heard Jesus’ words and felt Jesus’ presence—now that he had ascended, they felt it still. The Spirit of God was the only way to explain that experience.

The Trinity is an understanding of God that is unique to Christianity, though in many cultures divinity as a triad was common. What is unique about the Christian Trinity is that it is one God who exists in three persons without being three beings. Over the centuries many theologians have written millions of words about this teaching. What is important, to me, about the Trinity is that God’s existence is a community and we are made in that image—just as God works faithfully, steadfastly, compassionately and graciously in diverse ways and we, too, work best and most faithfully as community—much better than trying it alone.

To the glory of God, three in one and one in three. Amen.

Sermon May 24 2009

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Psalm 1
1 John 5:9-13
John 17:6-19
“Praying Wholly”
Last week I began to speak of prayer as an integral part of our lives as faithful Christians. I talked of how we can share the ways we connect with God. We can share the ways in which we connect so that people who need to understand God can see other ways to know God. The scripture texts today continue to reveal ways in which people within the biblical witness have connected with God—or pray to God.

Jesus words in the gospel lesson today are a part of the great intercessory prayer of John’s gospel. In it, Jesus prays a prayer that sums up much of his teaching—expressed in a prayer to God, but obviously meant to teach those who read it later. Jesus prayed, “and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.”

Last Sunday, I shared that I use some traditions that have come out of ancient Christian practices collected and published by a group in northern England. Because I tend to pray with words and communicate with words, I tend to focus on using words and ideas as the way I communicate. But I also feel that my spirituality is informed by how I connect with the body of Christ through my physical activity—working toward God’s vision of justice in the world. So I read devotions, pray aloud—reading prayers and readings by others, and reading scripture. I also feel that communication with God can happen if I am working to help others. I believe that it is important to have more than one way of connecting—even one way is the most comfortable to us.

I believe this because there are a variety of ways in which we can practice spirituality or prayer, experiencing God’s presence and God’s influence within us. If we use our minds, we may neglect God’s influence within our bodies—if we rely only on the physical prayer or mission, our minds or hearts may suffer from neglect, our emotional selves may not connect. And even if we use mind, heart and body—or intellect, emotions and the physical self—we may not involve the community, focusing only on self to the neglect of others.

Praying with the mind
In Psalm 1, we read that:
The blessed are those who follow the advice of the Yahweh,
meditating on the word of God.
Then they will thrive like trees by streams
—bearing fruit, staying green, so they prosper in the spirit.

We can pray with our minds through the reading of scripture and other devotional materials. There are many traditions that are primarily intellectual, but one I enjoy is called Lectio Divina, or divine reading, “holy reading.” And though it uses the words of scriptures, the heart is also clearly involved.

Lectio
This first moment consists in reading the scriptural passage slowly, attentively several times. Many write down words in the scripture that stick out to them or grasp their attention during this moment.

We simply note the words that touch us without dwelling on meaning or from focusing on defining words. In this first phase of reading, we simply take note.

Meditatio
The reader maintains focus on around the passage or one of its words, takes it and ruminates on it, thinking in God’s presence about the text. He or she benefits from the Holy Spirit’s ministry of illumination, i.e. the work of the Holy Spirit that imparts spiritual understanding of the sacred text. It is not a special revelation from God, but the inward working of the Holy Spirit, which enables the Christian to grasp the revelation contained in the Scripture.

Next we take those words or phrases that we have noted or written down and focus on how that fits into our particular lives. If words about preaching or teaching catch the eye, then perhaps we are to find a way talking about God—even if it isn’t from a public pulpit. We may have been given a chance to talk about faith to someone or we need to pay attention to those opportunities. Focusing on those words and phrases helps us to internalize the scripture. One way of doing this is journaling about those words—and each time one journals, one may find something new and different. We may even hear the scripture differently with different words and phrases coming to our attention.

Oratio
This is a response to the passage by opening the heart to God. It is not an intellectual exercise, but an intuitive conversation or dialogue with God.

Here we simply hold the passage with us—internally or keeping our mind focused on it. In my experience, this process can happen over days. When I read a text—for a sermon, for example, I allow it to stay with me through the week. It’s one of the reasons I don’t write a sermon for several days after selecting a text. But it is also one of the ways I meditate. I tend not to write things down immediately when I focus on scripture, but I live with it for awhile. I allow the words to simmer, so to speak, for several days.

Contemplatio
This moment is characterized by a simple, loving focus on God. In other words, it is a beautiful, wordless contemplation of God, a joyful rest in [God’s] presence.

Finally, we come to a place where a particular text exists with us always, help us to focus not on the words, but on how it allows us to experience God’s very being. To me, this is not a destination for a text, but a place to rest within the text for awhile—perhaps for years, but always with the openness that we may learn and experience other ways within the text.

Praying with the heart
The first letter of John contains these words, “Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts.”

When we pray with our hearts, we allow our deepest and most vulnerable places to be exposed to God. My belief is that this is the way we pray in our most private times—when only God is witness to us. We express our doubts and fears, allowing God into those places. We expresses what we protect most fiercely from even our friends and family. We probably don’t even use words—this may be the most sincere kind of prayer. It may also be the most difficult. We may pray with the heart in public, behind all the words and actions, it still means facing the truest feelings we have. We face who we loathe in our hearts; we face who we love most within our hearts; we face the evil we have done and the good we have done.

It also means taking on the practice of compassion as a way of connecting to God. The spiritual practice of compassion is often likened to opening the heart. First, allow yourself to be feel the suffering in the world, including your own. Don't turn away from pain; move toward it with caring. Go into situations where people are hurting. Identify with your neighbors in their distress. Then expand the circle of your compassion to include other creatures, nature, and the inanimate world.

Praying with the body
Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
The psalmist describes physical prayer from the negative—happy are those who do not live as the wicked, walk as the sinner, sit as the scoffer. I might phrase it this way. Happy are those who listen to the fulfilled and healthy, imitating their actions; those who walk with the loving and those who sit and eat like those who take joy in life.

In my experience and understanding, when we take the opportunity to pray with our physical selves, it means taking the knowledge or wisdom and sincerity or compassion we have experienced and expressing it through action. Doing the word of God after exploring it and ourselves is physical prayer. That may come about in any number of ways. In many people, hospitality is a way of expressing prayer physically. Cooking, hosting, welcoming, preparing a place for others is hospitality. Another way to pray physical is simply to be present with someone who needs to share their joy or sorrow. Celebrating or mourning with another person is physical prayer.

Play is another way of praying physically. Play is the exuberant expression of our being. It is at the heart of our creativity, our sexuality, and our most carefree moments of devotion. It helps us live with absurdity, paradox, and mystery. It feeds our joy and wonder. It keeps our search for meaning down to earth.

Most of us don't play enough. We're either too "busy," a code word for workaholism, or we're too serious, mistaking earnestness for accomplishment. We're predictable, too, equating free-spiritedness with irresponsibility. The best treatment for these conditions is play. We need to lighten up.

Praying with the body in whatever way is taking our physical selves into a place or time for the purpose of connecting with God in some way. We may take physical exercise or other action seriously without realizing that it can feed us spiritually as well. It may be a time when we listen best to what God is saying to us. It may be the time when we can clear our minds most effectively so that God doesn’t have to compete with so much mind traffic.

Praying with the community
In the book of Acts, Peter and the other apostles pray about replacing Judas to fill the allocation of twelve apostles that Jesus had appointed. They prayed about the replacement, found a few candidates and then followed their tradition and cast lots, or rolled dice to choose the right one. Lots, at the time, were seen as one way that God helped people make decisions between equal candidates.

I understand that prayer within the community is meant to guide and enhance the work that we do in community. Whenever Peter and the others made decisions for the newly forming church in the book of Acts, they brought together the community to pray before they did anything as a group. The decision making process itself was not particularly spiritually, one might think—they cast lots. What was important about the decision making was that they stayed in prayer for a long time before making any decision. They allowed God to influence their hearts, minds and bodies inside the group before they decided in any way.

I wonder sometimes if we try and make decision too quickly within the church because we are afraid to stop and wait what God has to say to us. I don’t believe we should wait forever—God does know that we are creatures with limited life—but we do need to give God time to work on us and give God a chance to work with us. Prayerfully discerning God’s desire and will and then prayerfully deciding how to put that into practice is vital to prayer within community.

I would invite all of us to take up a new practice of prayer—of some kind. Add praying with your mind—reading one of the lectionary texts listed on the insert in your bulletin. I have inserted the process for lectio divina in your bulletin as well as suggestions for the other methods. They aren’t written in stone, adapt them to fit your life.

Find a way to pray—pray for me, pray for you, pray for this congregation and pray for the church everywhere. Let us bring glory to God—let us be the people in whom Jesus is glorified each day as we seek God’s voice, Jesus’ way and the fire of the Holy Spirit within us.

Amen.