Sermon August 19, 2012

1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14

Psalm 111

Ephesians 5:15-20

John 6:51-58

“Living Wisdom”

I confess that I do not always prioritize the tasks I have to do and consider each of them carefully, weighing their importance and then scheduling my day, week, month or year accordingly. I confess that I don't want to spend that much time deciding anything. And I also confess that I often prioritize on the fly, doing what needs to be done as it needs to be done. And I confess that I don't get done what I need to get done in the most efficient way that I'd like to do it. I read an example of one person's conviction by this text in Ephesians about making the most of our time. In that case, it was exercise and commitment to exercise—finding the motivation to continue through or beyond illness or discomfort. And I confess that for myself as well.

Making the most of my time—of your time, individually and as a community—is an incredibly difficult thing for some of us. And for some of us, making the most of our time comes as second nature. Or that's the way it looks to those of us who seem to have trouble with it, who call ourselves procrastinators, those of us who can't quite find the spur to get that one thing done that never seems to get accomplished.

Wisdom can be expressed in the ways that we live our lives—wisdom in getting done what needs to be done as efficiently as possible. And there is wisdom in taking the time we need to get things done well—as a part of God's fullness and diversity of creation, it seems to me that all of us express some integral part of God's way and will for the world. So as we negotiate life—we are slowed down and sped up at different times and in different ways. Some of them frustrate us—and may indeed still be the will and the way of God.

Wisdom is expressed, according to the text from Ephesians by finding joy in worship. Wisdom is in the joyful faith of experiencing God. Foolishness from ignoring God—from what the psalm of the day might call not fearing God or thinking we are God, for that matter. While we might not ever say it, we may act that way at times.

As an example, I heard a woman describing how she used to see her faith. At one point in time she felt that believing exactly the right things in exactly the right way with exactly the right words used to describe them meant that she was safely saved. What she began to realize was that she made God very small and herself very powerful when she did that. She had all the control over her relationship with God and God had almost none. I thought this was an unusual and yet very accurate way of looking at salvation. We do need to practice spiritual disciplines: prayer, fasting, giving, service, compassionate acts, and worship because they spur us and help us maintain a relationship with God. And yet we can't say that just because we do a certain amount of “whatever it is” that that means we have it all together and God must be really impressed.

Instead, the text from Ephesians in the midst of all of the small pieces of this letter we have been examining, is pointing to “a pathway to wisdom through a spirit-centered lifestyle, joining individual and corporate, ethics and worship, prayer and action. Wise people make the most of the time of their lives. They don’t get distracted by ego needs, self-gratification, power plays, and consumerism. They have a big picture of life, not otherworldly, but cognizant of the countless opportunities to experience God in the shifting, dynamic, arising and perishing world. Life is short, live it to the fullest – be fully alive, glorifying God. Life is wonderful, despite its brokenness, because God is always with us as source of wisdom, energy, and adventure.”¹

And so because life is wonderful and we can be wise, the text turns our attention toward singing—celebrating Holy Spirit, it seems to be saying, instead of singing because of other spirits. It calls us to sing songs and psalms, make melody to God. Lively singing can be a lively wisdom when it moves us to worship, to praise, to thoughtfulness, to new ideas, to actions that help reveal God within us and all around us.

We celebrate the possibilities that may be—sing of the wonders of the world God has created—praise God for the experiences we have had of God in our lives and thank God for the incredible deeds that God has yet to do.

A few of you in the last couple of years have told me about songs/hymn that bring up memories and reminders of commitments made in the past. I still remember the song that our church sang when I decided to come forward and confess my faith in Jesus. It's not necessarily one I really have any fondness for otherwise. We were singing the gospel hymn “Victory in Jesus.” Some of you have expressed the comfort you receive from old hymns and some of you have said that you really enjoy hearing and learning new hymns. And a some of you have noticed that the hymns we sing on Sunday mornings usually, if at all possible, reinforce the sermon or the theme for the worship service as closely as possible, especially the hymn that directly follows the sermon.

As someone who loves music, songs often come to me out of the blue. And some of them for very good reason—I've been thinking about problems or confusions and a song will come that corresponds in some way. Though there are also the songs that are there for no reason and won't seem to leave. But most of the time, if a song is in my mind and heart, I can understand why. A song may redirect me from selfishness or sorrow, like one of the hymns we'll sing next Sunday, “My Life Flows on.” Sometimes when I have a particular sorrow or how found something to be particularly thankful for, the refrain from that hymn starts running,

“No storm can shake my inmost calm,

while to that rock I'm clinging.

When love is Lord of heav'n and earth,

how can I keep from singing?”

It's not even a song that we sang in my church as a child, but somewhere along the way it entered my internal recording of songs and tunes that means something to me.

In my life, songs and hymns have carved out permanent places and created patterns for my heart and mind to find solace. I'm glad I have them with me, reminding that God has been revealed to many people in comforting, loving and joyful ways. Some songs remind me of responsibilities we have toward one another as nations and as individuals

One song like that has these lyrics,

There is no nation by god exempted

Lay down your weapons

and love your neighbor as yourself

In the night fall when the light falls

And what you've seen isn't there anymore
It's through our blind trust that love will find us
Just like it has before.²

And I'm always reminded of my mother when I hear the Christmas carol, “There's a Song in the Air!” because it was her favorite. Perhaps because of that, but also in a more objective way, I also love this carol. When I sing or hear or think about this song, I am comforted by memories and strengthened in my faith.

The songs we love, the hymns that speak to us, the ones that give us hope, the ones that remind us of what's important or basic often play important roles in our faith development. This text in Ephesians leads its readers from the crucial life of wisdom in days of evil through drunkenness and wild living and offers the alternative pleasure of the presence of the Holy Spirit where singing to God and praising God and thanking God as the source of joy.

There are those of you who, unlike myself, may not find songs or hymns or singing as the inspiration, like some do. But I know that there are events, stories, and experiences that do prompt joy for you—walking in the woods or on the golf course, running in the rain and snow, witnessing the flowers blooming and even the incredible genius of a well-written novel may inspire you. In our worship, let us sing with joy when we can and in our lives outside this place, may we be enliven in the wisdom that we encounter as we praise God in so many other ways and in other places and times.

Our priorities can be kept in balance as we realize how it is that God comes into our lives—and by paying attention to those times, places and ways, we can learn what's really import to our lives as faith-filled Christians. The ideal life for each one of us is likely to contribute the life of faith that we share with one another. The wisdom that God gives us can move us to be more compassionate, more joyful and more caring in our relationships with others.

So let us worship God in all that we do—finding joy in a living wisdom, full of thanks and praise for God. Amen.

1http://www.patheos.com/blogs/livingaholyadventure/2012/08/the-adventurous-lectionary-twelfth-sunday-after-pentecost/

2“Our Deliverance,” Indigogirls on Become You, 2002.

Sermon August 12, 2012

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33

Psalm 130

Ephesians 4:25 - 5:2

John 6:35, 41-51

“Christ-like Living”

Anger in and of itself is not a sin. In a story in the first part of John's gospel and in the last third of the other gospels, Jesus was angry. In John's gospel it goes this way, “Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’”¹

If we are trying to live a Christ-like life that doesn't mean we are never going to get angry. We can be assured of that. Jesus was angry sometimes—and I'm pretty sure this was just the most public occurrence. But there is a difference between being angry and being malicious, hateful and full of vengeance. There is a difference between showing anger and violence toward others and toward yourself.

I've known folks who have lived very angry lives—angry because their role in family life was always unfair. I've know people who were angry and bitter because they had been convinced they weren't smart enough or pretty enough or slim enough. Sometimes the anger we feel seems justified, understandable. Yet even then it can seep into every other part of our lives. Sometimes I've seen people who live as if it seems as if everyone wanted to hurt them and so was able to hurt them very easily.

I've known other people who have been angry, too. They were also angry because unfair things happened to them—and they let that anger fuel solutions to their problems. They turned the anger into energy, into a motivation to fight the unfairness. And when the particular subject of their anger—the person, situation, or event was gone or over, they could move on. They were able to respond with love even to the unfairness or harshness of whatever or whomever they were angry with and when the situation changed, they could resolve their feelings.

Anger can make us bitter; or as the writer said in Ephesians, anger can help us “make room for the devil.” And anger can move us, shake us and make us stand up for what is right.

Anger is a powerful motivator. Anger can move us to stand up to injustice and give us the passion we need to change what needs to be changed. It may move us to write a letter and let people in power know what we are thinking and feeling. At camp this summer, one of the songs we sang was a little too sophisticated for the youngest of the campers. So one of the girls in my hogan wrote a letter to the director to protest its exclusion. When I heard her talking about it, I heard that she often deals with her anger with this kind of protest. She argues with passion and with a lot of logic. She didn't feel that it wasn't fair and she wanted the leadership to know it. I hope she continues to direct her anger this way—doing something about it instead of just fuming and fussing.

In the letter to the Ephesians, the writer gave a set of instructions regarding truth, anger and malicious talk. And most importantly the reason we are told to act in such a way was so that we could be imitators of God—God who doesn't abuse in anger, who instead responds to anger with love, as found in Jesus Christ. When Jesus tossed out the money-changers and people selling livestock, he was angry because the truth of God's law had gotten mixed up in opportunistic greed. I firmly believe he wasn't defending God—but protesting the fleecing of God's people.

There are times to be angry, urging us to passionate responses in the face of injustice and unethical behavior and violent abusive people and situations. And there are times when we have to give up anger—as the writer encourages—before the sun goes down, before we regret what we may do.

Skipping for a moment, the statement on theft—I'll come back to it—the author tells the people in Ephesus, anger or other strong feeling shouldn't make evil talk come from their mouths, but only encouraging words. Will we be angry? Yes. Should we always tell everyone about it? Good question.

My mother read once that parents shouldn't spank their children when they are angry, she wondered out loud, more than once, “Then when should I spank you!?” She may have missed the point of the article she was reading. (Maybe spanking wasn't always the best way of handling discipline?)

I think, along with this writer of Ephesians, the point was that anger shouldn't make us regret whatever it is that we do—not choosing when we do evil, but choosing instead to encourage and be a gift to those who hear our words when we are angry. If we can't be a gift or a grace, then we should probably calm down first, which also might have been good advice for my mother.

Stepping away from an angry situation—if we can't handle our anger well—and giving ourselves time to deal with our feelings so we don't slip into internalized anger, violent outbursts, unremitting anger, argument for argument's sake, spreading rumors (even if they are true) or lying to get back at people, but instead we can take time to be kind and understanding and forgiving people when they make us angry because we have and are and will be forgiven by God who forgives us.

Finally, coming back to the comment on stealing, “Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labour and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.” I love the reasoning in this one. Those who are thieves shouldn't steal, not because stealing is dishonest or wrong, but so that they have resources to share with people who are in need.

This seems like an unrelated assertion, a side-bar, and it may be, but all of these rules or ways of living out a life imitating God in Jesus Christ—urge us closer to that ideal. We don't steal, not because other people's stuff doesn't belong to us—we don't steal so that we can care for other. Just like we don't cause other's harm when we are angry because God is love, we don't steal for the same reason.

Imagine the best day that you've ever had—the best day because you and the people around you were loving and caring for one another. It was the best day you've had because the people gathered around could be honest and helpful to one another; people were truly loving to one another because no one felt left out or abandoned by others. It's hard to imagine—but imagine that we live out of our membership in the body of Christ that way. Not out of fear, but out of love, love for all of the people that God loves and not only the ones that we like and understand.

“. . . a quick glance around this broken world makes it painfully obvious that we don’t need more arguments on behalf of God; we need more people who live as if they are in covenant with Unconditional Love, which is our best definition of ‘God’.”²

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” And if we are the body of Christ in this world—we carry the bread of life in ourselves, not for our own sakes, but so be God's beloved children and to live in love and perhaps . . . “as to have something to share with the needy.”³

To the glory of God and God alone. Amen.

1John 2:13-16

2Robin R. Meyers, from Saving Jesus from the Church

3Ephesians 5:28c

Sermon August 5, 2012

2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a

Psalm 51:1-12

Ephesians 4:1-16

John 6:24-35

“Unity in Community”

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”¹ When we stepped onto the road of discipleship, we stepped onto a road that probably began at our baptisms, our confirmations, wherever we place our acceptance and commitment to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior of the world and of our lives. Whenever and however that commitment began, the acceptance of our discipleship of Jesus Christ isn't the end of the road, it's the first step on the journey of a lifetime.

I truly believe that each one of us is called through our discipleship to a purpose that suits us as joint heirs with Jesus within the household of God. When we take on the mantle of salvation we join together with others who have made the same commitment—disciples of Jesus who are a part of this congregation and disciples of Jesus who are outside of it. We share the road of discipleship with folks who accept us as fellow disciples and some who don't. We even share the road with folks who seem strange and weird, hardly like us at all, but who share that one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God and creator of us all.

Within our own congregations and within our denomination, we are called to be one, to be reconciled, to be strong, to strive to be worthy of our calling. . . . we are called to seek that same unity across congregational and denominational lines, too, to reach out to our Christian sisters and brothers and to find common ground, common hope, common calling. All of this is to bear witness to the loving God who "laid down the earth's foundations," thinking of us, focusing an immeasurable love on us, intending for us to be whole and holy through the power of that love.²

The writer of this letter to the Ephesians uses the metaphor of body to describe the church of Jesus. And so the writer affirms the importance of bodies to God. In the humanity of Jesus, we are also reminded that God loves the human body. Because what we do with our bodies matter, as believers and disciples, we are the embodiment of Christ in the world. What we do, how we live out a call is important because we represent Christ—especially as we relate to the world as a church a more clear representative of Christ than any one of us alone. Yet each one of us has a particular calling via our particular set of talents and gifts and skills that is exactly like no other disciple of Jesus.

And within that particular set of talents, gifts and skills, I think our calling shifts slightly as we go through life. I wasn't much of a preacher at the age of 10 or 15—I would have died of embarrassment. Now, I hope that I fulfill that calling with some giftedness and talent, and with at least a little bit of skill that can only come from experience.

The quote at the beginning of the sermon today comes from Frederick Buechner whose writing boils things down poetically and helps us to hear things somewhat differently than maybe we've heard them before. If we are called—and here and in other places the bible says we are—then there are times when we need to clarify for ourselves what it is we are called to do. At one phase in life, we may have been called to scale ladders and paint buildings for those who cannot do it themselves. Or rake leaves or make meals or other such activity. At another point in life, that may no longer be true. But that doesn't mean the calling is gone, today the calling may shift from climbing to writing to driving or from driving to phoning or from phoning to climbing those ladders with paint.

What do we do that makes us glad deep inside and how can that fill a need for another person, fulfilling their hunger? And how could what we need, a deep hunger within ourselves, be met through the actions of another? Are we ready to be taught for a few hours so that we can minister to others for years?

What is just as important about this text from the letter to the Ephesians is that call to unity within those gathered as disciples of Jesus Christ. We are called to reach out to those in need—as our talents and skills and gifts warrant our reaching out. And we are called to do it in humility—not believing ourselves to be without talent, but with gratitude that only God gives us what we need to share with those whose giftedness is developing or lies elsewhere.

We are called to minister to one another, certainly, but to minister together as well. And to minister with the power of God within us. God's own power "at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20, last week's Epistle reading), so we never need to feel overwhelmed or overpowered, because God's power is limitless and it's at work within us, always. We may think we dream big and aspire for great things, but God's power is already working towards a dream far bigger and greater than anything we've thought of or imagined. What an incredible statement that is – and it sets up today's reading, which begins with such a significant "therefore": "I, therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called…"(4:1 NRSV).

And it's a calling for which we have been gifted—we may have to practice, A LOT, to be skilled, but we have the gifts we need. And to practice, we start small. We start with baby steps. This Sunday, I put a small chart up on the wall in the narthex with some service or mission ideas. These are places where some of us could put our energy. If you have an idea and a person to call to find out more, then write that down.

A couple of you have suggested some of what I have put on the chart—I'd like you to put down a phone number or some contact information for those ideas. I hope that this is a way of connecting us—our gifts and needs—with others who have gifts and needs that match.

And you know what? You don't have to keep doing one thing, making one response or sharing one gift if you know that you have others to share. You can try something else—see if you can find where your deep gladness can meet some hunger out there. And we rejuvenate our gladness when we take time occasionally to spend time with God and with friends and family.

I think that's where we find the humility and the gentleness, the patience, the forbearance, the love and the unity—when we find the place where we are glad to be serving, glad to be doing the mission of the body of Christ, glad to be meeting some need. That's not to say that we will never be impatience or difficult or that folks we serve or who serve us won't have a bad day. But the depth of gratitude we feel for the opportunity to walk the way of Jesus Christ alongside him will still spur us on.

That kind of gratitude helps to knit us together, to work together well, to grow into one another well—not blurring our distinctions, but allowing us to see better the direction we're moving. That is my prayer. Let us be built up in love, the love of Jesus Christ, evident in all that we do and all that we accomplish beyond what we could ever ask or imagine. Amen.

1Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993, page 119.

2http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/august-5-2012-eighteenth-sunday.html#Additional

Sermon July 29, 2012

2 Samuel 11:1-15

Psalm 14

Ephesians 3:14-21

John 6:1-21

“God Is with Us”

Psalm 14 begins “Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’” And while many of us wouldn't say, “There is no God”—at least out loud—most, if not all, of us have acted this way a few times in our lives. We've acted like we have all the answers and understood all the questions without doubt or any acknowledgment that life is full of mystery and wonder. We pretend that we don't have unsolvable problems—unsolvable without the presence, assistance and gifts that God provides through divine intervention. And that God hasn't helped us and been present to us through the wondrous presence of friends, family, strangers and human society and culture including church.

Fools do say in their hearts that there is no God and God knows we've all been fools a few times—and some of us more than others. One of the tenets of a twelve-step program like Alcoholics Anonymous is acknowledgment of a higher power. In other words, the alcoholic or other addict has to be able to say, “There is something out there somewhere that is more powerful than I am.” An addict has to recognize the previous foolishness of “There is no God,” and trade it for the relative wisdom that something somewhere is more powerful than his or her addiction, than he or she has been in dealing with that addiction. That's the base line for growth in wisdom—a recognition of powerlessness against problems that are more powerful than each one of us is alone.

The psalm goes on to say that God looks down to see if any have wisdom and sees that the people who do evil take bread from others and don't ask God for help. Then it states that,

There they shall be in great terror,
   for God is with the company of the righteous.
You would confound the plans of the poor,
   but the Lord is their refuge.¹

There is something about the people who are willing to acknowledge their powerlessness without God that makes it possible for God's power to be present in their lives. And there is something about people who recognize God's presence in their lives through direct action and through the support of family and friends and other institutions in human society that makes it possible for them to help others. When we know we didn't do it alone, when we know that God has brought us thus far—we can know that we play a part in bringing others along, too. God blesses us through others so that others can be blessed through us.

There is the miracle that happens through the generous sharing of the blessings of creation and the miracle that occurs by such mysterious means that we can do nothing but stand in awe at the power of God in our lives. God is with us either way—the questions, will we recognize God? And how do we recognize God?

In the context of John's gospel, the point is that God is with and within Jesus and John is out to show us the answers to those questions. John wants to show us how not to be fools. So he shows us how God is with and within Jesus by what Jesus does, especially in a story like the one we heard today.

So, we learn who Jesus is by what he does (isn't that true of everyone – don't actions speak even louder than words?), but John's powerful discourses by Jesus are not free-floating. The words Jesus said (the discourses) connect to these stories about what Jesus did (his signs, or amazing works of wonder). And so we have the disciples, down-to-earth (even up on a mountain) and overwhelmed by the crowd, computing the cost of feeding so many people. "Impossible!" they say, but we know that all things are possible with God, of course, especially, with Jesus, "who redefines what is possible".² So this story is just as much, if not more, about the power of God in Jesus as it is about Jesus' compassion for the hungry crowd. God's power, after all, is "far more than all we can ask or imagine," as we read in Ephesians 3:20b.³

This story is about what can be accomplished with the help of God—God with Jesus Christ, God with the farmer who grew the barley, God with the fisherman who caught the fish, God with the basket-maker who wove the baskets, God with the boy who generously offered his lunch with compassion and kindness and God with the disciples who were lost in pragmatism and logic.

In each of the persons and situations that this story draws from and touches, God's power and action could be evaluated and acknowledged—God's wonders were performed. In each person from the individuals of the crowd to Jesus, Messiah and Son of God, the signs of God can be found. Where do we recognize ourselves individually and as a community of followers of Jesus in this passage?

As a community made up of followers of Jesus, we find ourselves acting in many ways and in a variety of situations—we seek sustenance as a community, at least spiritual sustenance because we do come together in worship to pray and to share corporately in song and other forms of praising God. We seek nourishment, too, as we look for faithful community or fellowship when we eat, play and work together rather than always alone. We also seek to be fed because we know in some way that we are not complete without the God who made us and sustains us: we are sometimes sadder than we want to be, lonelier than we seem to be or needy in some way that is hard to describe.

Together we seek nourishment because we have a vision of who we could be and who we have been. We want to grow in faith and we want to grow into the church we could be with God's help. We have a vision of where God may be calling us together, which will take more than we seem to have today—but not more than God can provide. We could stay like the disciples were in today's story and just wonder how or we can stick with Jesus and see the miracle happen. We will see the great and fantastic place where God is leading us here in this community—if we stay faithful to the road where Jesus has walked.

And even though we are among the ones in this story who are seeking sustenance—among the ones who are hungry for something—we also experience abundance when we realize how much we have in the context of this global community we live in. When God is with us, we see how much we have to give, how much we have to share with others. We have relative material abundance and we have the knowledge of lifetimes lived in faith. We have valuable experience we can share as long as we can share it without the cynicism that is also pretty abundant in this world. Cynicism says, “Six months wages won't buy enough bread!” Wisdom says we have something, so lets bless the bread and fish and start passing them out anyway.

God is with us this day and God is with us always. We can sometimes recognize the power of God without quite understanding it. When Jesus fed the crowd, for instance, in their shortsightedness they wanted to throw away the imperial power of Rome and replace it with a crown for Jesus, they wanted to shorten the story to their scope of understanding, but Jesus knew there was more.

God is with us this day and God is with us always. The disciples were starting to realize the power that was in Jesus—and yet he still surprised and terrified them when he walked on the water. God's power in Jesus is revealed more and more clearly as we read this gospel and as we experience what God can do through him in our lives as individuals and as church.

Let us be wise and not be fools—let us trust that there is a God as we do the work of Christ together. Let us be generous with our love and with our lives as we seek to thrive and grow in this place and time. Let us admit that we can't do this thing called church or this thing called life without the power of God within us. Let us know that God is with us, not advocating all of our choices, behaviors and actions, but calling us to faithfully work together as Christ's body accomplishing “ more than all we can ask or imagine.”

To the glory of God. Amen.

1Psalm 14:5-6

2Texts for Preaching Year B, Charles Cousar http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/july-29-2012-seventeenth-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html

3http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/july-29-2012-seventeenth-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html

Sermon July 22, 2012

2 Samuel 7:1-14a

Psalm 89:20-37

Ephesians 2:11-22

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

“Vision of Unity”

Several years ago, I worked with a church renewal program which had as an article of faith that each and every church has all the tools it needs to thrive if only the church would choose to use them for the purpose they were given. As an illustration, they would show a covered wagon type vehicle with square wheels or no wheels where the round ones should have been or with the cover that could be a sail folded up instead providing a place where the Holy Spirit could move the church forward into the future God had given it to live. Often the items necessary would be stored inside the wagon so they would be broken or used up.

Part of what I really like about the ideas within this program was that it didn't claim to know what each church needed, but only that God had given each church the gifts and tools necessary to do ministry in the time and place where the church lived.

Yet within the conversations we would have, there were differences about how gifts should be used—and how and where people were willing to use them. There were differences of opinion about how the church could and should live—with some of the folks seeming to have the right answers or simply disagree with anyone who offered other answers or suggestions. In other words, if you didn't agree with them on each and every point, you must be wrong.

I have also experienced groups of Christians who have particular views of prayer, bible study, theological position or teaching, use of language, denominational identity or personal experience where they stood so firmly (or stubbornly) that no one else could ever be quite as completely right as they were themselves. There is nothing wrong with having a strong faith and yet it is something else to have one's own religious rules and regulations condemn another person's carefully and prayerfully considered way of life according to their study, prayer and experience of God, God's Holy Spirit and God's Son.

There are some incredible spiritual renewal processes in the world that have renewed churches worship experiences beginning with individuals and small groups. Yet sometimes, in our human weaknesses, some of those programs have people convinced that, unless another person experiences them in the same way, they just don't get what God is doing in people's lives and in the world.

In the letter to the Ephesians, the Pauline writer begins with a blessing—which was read in last week's worship. In part, this blessing invokes God as the Father of Jesus and uniting God of all creation—as Christ brought all creation into the plan of salvation and through Christ all of this was done, once for all. And it the first chapter of the letter, the recipients were told that this salvation was in effect from the beginning of time and came into fruition when Jesus came, teaching and living and dying and rising according to God's promise of redemption for all creation. Through this blessing, unity is proposed for all of creation because of what God had already done in creation and in and through Jesus Christ.

In chapter 2 of the letter, Paul reminds the listeners that before meeting and following Jesus Christ, they were dead because sin was the dominant characteristic of their lives. They lived, as do we all without Jesus' way of living, following selfish desires and self-focused goals only—with anger at obstructions our reaction to anything or anyone that makes us slightly unhappy. He continues that it is by the grace of God in Jesus that each person was and is given life because survival and self-focus is not longer the dominant characteristic or purpose. We can become, in this way, what God created us to be to begin with. And part of what we are to be is united with God and one another and with all of creation through the way of life and redemption of Jesus Christ.

Today's text applies this idea of unity to the specific situation of the people of the community or church in Ephesus. The Jewish followers of Jesus—who lived according to the covenant God made with Abraham and Moses, including circumcision—felt or acted superior to the Gentile followers of Jesus—who were not circumcised on the seventh day of their young, male lives and did not keep the law of Moses in the same ways.

The Jewish followers of Jesus, it seems from this letter were feeling superior to the Gentile followers and let them feel this way—they were the spiritual insiders that already knew the answers to all the questions. Or that's the way it seemed to some.

Many of us, in my experience, feel like or act like that kind of insider. If you or I have grown up within one congregation or one denomination set of understandings, you or I may feel like we have all the answers. I heard at one time or another, often meant with compassion, “I can't imagine how people live without knowing (Jesus, God, salvation, justification, pray, love, faith, etc.) for certain.” And while that statement is meant, I think, to say, “I couldn't have done it without my faith in God, Jesus, or without my church,” sometimes it sounds arrogant as if we have “IT” and no one else does.

Or maybe you've been on the receiving end of that kind of statement because this church and denomination doesn't teach from a doctrinal statement. That we are somehow suspect or not quite Christian because of it. Have you heard that?

In our defense, I would hold up these texts from Ephesians as evidence of the early church's wrestling with the same issues. I would lift up the universality of description, how Paul taught that Jesus brought two (or more) parts of humanity together instead of making one superior to the other. Paul taught that Jesus was about building a house where God's children could live together and not a ghetto where God's children were segregated or where they segregated others.

And in the spirit of peace, which this letter proclaims as a gift of Christ to the faith, “in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”¹ In the body of Jesus Christ, God has brought all followers of Jesus together in spite of the differences we continue to proclaim within that body—and even within this body, this congregation.

Though we look to the day when unity within the body of Christ is made real, we also live within a world that likes to lift up our differences. Instead of pointing out how different we are, perhaps we can proclaim how we want the same goals. Poverty, hunger, homelessness, loneliness, depression, despair, uncontrolled anger, abuse, addiction and so many other conditions of humanity can be addressed with the compassion, grace, gifts, and love of Jesus Christ from within the church who carries out his ministry. I pray that we can leave behind the injuries that have been done to us by other Christians and Christian leaders and do the work that we still have to do. I pray that we can lift up the household of God that Paul says we have been given no matter how we might disagree on some things.

I pray with great hope that our vision of God's dwelling-place remains the vision toward which all of us strive—a vision where we see ourselves living and working with faith and with the hope that Jesus Christ has given us.

To the glory of God, God of promise to all of Creation. Amen.

1Ephesians 2:13-14