Sermon: "Earth, Wind, and Fire"

May 23, 2010 – Pentecost Sunday

“Earth, Wind, and Fire”

Genesis 11:1-9

Acts 2:1-21

I attended a worship service in Kentucky last week where the preacher stood up and said, “I have no idea what I’m going to preach on today, but I’m hoping the Spirit will give me something real soon.” With only one day to prepare this sermon I seriously contemplated getting up here and relying on the spirit as well…. Luckily the words did come.

On Thursday night I flew into Logan airport in Boston after spending eleven days traveling through the Appalachian mountains of central and eastern Kentucky. Our group contained 10 seminarians from 4 different schools, two seminary professors and a local guide from the Appalachian Ministry group that organized the trip.

13 people, 11 days, traveling in one passenger van, and spending the night in group lodgings. We got very familiar with each other very fast.

We hailed from 5 different states, represented 5 different Christian denominations, and held a multitude of differing theological beliefs, but as we traveled through the mountains of Kentucky we quickly realized that as different as we were from each other, to the Kentuckians that we visited it was as if we had dropped out of the sky from another universe.

We were outsiders for sure. Our accents, our dress, our theology and our politics labeled us as such, but at times it seemed as if we were not even speaking the same language, and I had to wonder if and how we would ever come to understand one another.

Last Sunday our group attended worship at the Blair Branch Old Regular Baptist church in Jeremiah, Kentucky. For those of you unfamiliar with the many, many different kinds of Baptists in the world, there is a denomination called “Old Regular Baptist” – the name was chosen back in 1892 to distinguish the primarily Appalachian based group from the Regular Baptists, who were apparently too regular and not theologically conservative enough for the old regulars.

The Old Regulars believe in keeping with the "old ways." Their patriarchal organization follows a set of rules lifted from the New Testament. Women are denied a formal voice in church governance and are not allowed to speak in Worship, although they are allowed to sing.

Men are commanded to cut their hair, and women are admonished not to do so. Women must wear dresses or skirts; no slacks, jeans, or pantsuits; and Men are in command of the household while the women are to obey. The Old Regulars pride themselves on the belief that their church is an accurate representation of the early Christian Church of the New Testament.

So you can imagine how our rag tag group of seminarians must have looked when we walked into the Blair Branch Old Regular Baptist worship service last Sunday. The women in our group all wore pants, four of the women had short hair and two men had long hair, and we were led by two female professors, one of whom stood up during worship and rather proudly and loudly introduced our group to the congregation.

But our dress and our customs were not the only differences that separated us.

Theologically, it was if we were speaking two different languages.

During worship there was no mention of Jesus’ teachings or his instruction to go out into the world and be forces of change.

The theology of the Old Regular Baptists, and most of the churches in Eastern Kentucky as we discovered, is centered on the idea of personal salvation and the future resurrection that we will all experience after the second coming.

We must repent, or change our inner selves to receive our rewards in heaven, and accept the fact that true change will only come to the world on Judgment Day. We are powerless to change the world through our own actions.

In an area of the country that has traditionally been racked by poverty, unemployment, alcoholism, drug addition, high teen pregnancy and drop out rates, and has long had a love-hate relationship with the coal industry that both sustains its economy and threatens the environment and the health of its citizens, its easy to understand the appeal of a theology that is based on future rewards in the hereafter and denies that change is possible in the here and now.

If one feels powerless in the face of systemic imbalances that are seemingly resistant to change, then one has little choice but to throw up one’s hands and leave it all in the hands of God.

In eastern Kentucky, as in all parts of the Christian world, the theological language that is used to speak of God’s work and Jesus’ saving power in the world is a direct reflection of the culture in which it was developed.

Language and culture are inherently intertwined.

With each arising from and continuously influencing the other.

Both of our scripture readings today center on the power of linguistics – the power that language has to bring us together, and the power that it has to tear us apart.

In our reading from Genesis, we are given a glimpse at pre-history - the time after the Creation and before Abraham. Here we have a story that attempts to explain why the world has so many different cultures and so many different languages.

In this story, all the people of the world live in one place and share one language.

But they fear being scattered from this place so they decide to build a city to anchor them there.

They make bricks of earthen clay and burn them to build a tower that will reach to the heavens.

This passage is often interpreted as being about pride.

It is said that the people built a tower to make a name for themselves, to show that they had the power to create great things just as God had created them.

But in the Hebrew scripture, the phrase “making a name for oneself” is rarely used to denote arrogance or pride.

Rather, it implies an act of establishing an identity that is meant to endure.

In this case, the act of building a city to keep everyone in one place, to establish a common culture, a single culture, and to protect the single language.

The goal of the building project was to keep the people together.

To keep them from scattering. We know today that once people become scattered by distance they begin to develop their own ideas, their own culture, their own language, which over time can become vastly different from that of the originating group.

There is strength in sameness.

And difference has the potential to be a threat if the difference contradicts one’s own way of being.

But the conviction that humanity was to remain in one place with one single language was not part of God’s plan.

We are created in the image of God…God breathed life into us with the intention that we would continue to breath life into creation.

We are to be stewards of the earth.

God commanded humanity to continue to multiply, to care for the earth, to fill all the earth, and to remain faithful to God as it cared for God’s creation.

Humanity was honoring its own will rather than God’s will by attempting to stay in one place and by focusing on making a name for itself rather then moving out into the world as God intended.

So God put a stop to it.

God confused the language of the people and scattered them over the earth.

And once God did this, the people stopped building the tower.

They could no longer communicate with one another, and they no longer had a reason to build one great city.

They no longer shared a common goal.

According to this interpretation, God scattered the people not as punishment for building a mighty tower, but rather to squelch their desire to stay in one place, with one culture and one language.

But even in our scattered state we still hold within us the desire to build the Tower of Babel.

We still build cities, towers, and walls to celebrate our oneness, our sameness, and prevent us from becoming scattered and confused.

We build these cities, towers and walls because we are afraid that exposure to difference will shake the foundations that we stand on.

We build them because we’ve become so focused on our own will, we forget to ask ourselves if we are honoring God’s will.

God breathed life into us and gave us the ability to create as God created, but while we are using this creative ability we must ask ourselves, does this thing that we are creating honor God’s intentions?

Does God want this tower, this city, this wall to exist?

The wall that separated East and West Berlin.

The wall that separates the Israelis from the Palestinians.

The wall the separates the United States from Mexico.

And then there are the intangible walls and towers that we build to protect ourselves from becoming scattered and confused.

We build religious bodies that seek unity by throwing out those who do not conform.

We build economic systems that reward the haves and punish the have-nots.

We build family and social structures that promote uniformity and shun those on the margins.

The differing cultural, socio-economic, and theological languages that we speak can divide even those who speak the same native tongue.

Even when we’re speaking the same language the regional accent we use to speak that language can be a barrier to open communication.

As our seminarian group traveled through Kentucky last week, we asked the adults and young adults that we encountered to name the primary stereotypes that outsiders have about people who live in the Appalachian region of Eastern Kentucky. Many of them bemoaned the fact that because they speak with a southern drawl, outsiders automatically assume that they are slow witted, closed minded, and uneducated.

When we visited a non-profit health clinic, the woman running the clinic named her accent as the biggest obstacle that she’s had to overcome when interacting with potential donors from areas outside the south.

Yet right after calling out this stereotype, she invited her colleagues into the room and introduced us by saying, “This is a church group that is visiting Appalachia and they’re smart people, I mean really smart people.”

At that point the only interaction we had had with her was to tell her our names and where we were from – Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Washington DC. She didn’t yet know that we were grad students or that we were studying for the ministry. She simply heard our accents and the names of our home states and automatically assumed that we were “really smart people.”

In eastern Kentucky, as in many parts of the world, when one encounters a stranger his or her accent will instantly identify them as being an insider or an outsider in the dominant culture.

As human beings, we have a primitive need to know who we can trust, which is why we often feel threatened by those who are easily identifiable as outsiders.

We have a need to feel safe in our surroundings, so we use our creative abilities to build walls and to write laws that restrict the access that outsiders have to our world.

But all of our attempts to remain a people of one language and of one place seem to backfire on us. We assume that making a name for ourselves, expending energy to keep everyone on the same page with a common culture and language is what breeds unity and harmony, when in fact it often has the opposite effect.

Our world’s history is full of tragic attempts to legislate and enforce uniformity, from genocide to police states to dictatorships to Empires bent on world domination.

As we see in the Tower of Babel story, where we desire uniformity, God desires diversity. But what if we began to see cultural diversity as the consequence of God’s design for the world, rather then the result of God’s punishment of it? What if God confused our language and scattered us about the earth not as punishment for building the tower, but to kick start the process that we were intended to begin on our own?

In reality, most of us in the UCC view the Tower of Babel story as a mythical rather than literal account of how the diverse cultures of the world came to be. We may already believe that God intended the world to be diverse culturally and linguistically, but for some reason that doesn’t quell our need to seek uniformity, especially when it comes to issues of faith.

We hear the New Testament passages that compel us act as one body in Christ; to preach THE gospel to the ends of the earth; and to be united in our faith in the service of God.

But could it be that God desires a world full of faithful people that express that faith through the lens of different cultures, ideas, and languages?

I believe the second reading that we heard today from the book of Acts, the story of Pentecost, offers a resounding YES to that question.

In the Genesis reading we hear that all the people of the world are gathered in one place.

The Acts reading begins with a similar pronouncement.

On the day of the Pentecost, the disciples are all together in one place, gathered inside the walls of a house in Jerusalem.

And then in a rush of wind and fire God draws them outside.

They are filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to speak in other languages. The scripture tells us that faithful Jews from every nation under the heavens were present and each heard the disciples speaking of God’s love and grace in their own native language.

Contrary to many interpretations, the disciples were not speaking in tongues, as we would define it in modern terms. They were not speaking gibberish, and they were not speaking in one language while the interpreters heard another. The Holy Spirit gave the disciples the ability to speak the words of the gospel in the native tongues of every person present.

This was the unique charge of the newly emerging Christian faith. Jesus called on his disciples to carry the message of the gospel to all the nations of the world. Whereas the Jews were a people of one land, and a people of one book which was written in one language, Hebrew, the writer of the book of Acts foresaw that soon Gentiles of every stripe would be coming to Christ, and to spread the message of God’s inclusive love the language of God had to be inclusive as well.

The faith would also need to be culturally inclusive, as later on in the book of Acts we hear of the loosening of restrictions that at one time required new Christians to be circumcised and to honor the Jewish dietary and purity laws. One by one the walls that championed uniformity began to fall.

The people may have been scattered and their language confused, but through the work of Jesus and his disciples, God met the people where they were.

So what will it take for people of diverse cultures, languages, and theologies to communicate? Perhaps we can learn something from the people of the Blair Branch Old Regular Baptist Church in Jeremiah, Kentucky.

After our hodgepodge group of Yankee seminarians burst into their worship service last week with our pants wearing women, long-haired men, and outspoken female professors, the Old Regulars greeted us with open arms.

Every single member lined up to shake each of our hands, they gave us a tour of the church, handed out copies of their congregational yearbook, and invited us to a church supper they were holding later in the week. In a church that does not allow its women to speak in worship, the members embraced the women in our group warmly and seemed genuinely thrilled to hear that we were attending seminary to become pastors.

Despite our theological and cultural differences we were never judged, never chastised, and never shown anything less than genuine hospitality from every member present.

We had no intention of becoming members of their church and they knew it, and given their restrictions, many of us couldn’t become members even if we wanted to.

But none of that mattered to them.

We were alien visitors. Strangers in a strange land. With strange accents, strange clothing, and strange customs. But they welcomed us with the hospitality of Christ.

I like to believe that the Holy Spirit was moving through all of us that day. There was no wind, and tongues of fire did not descend from the sky, but we had ourselves a moment of Pentecost right there in the Blair Branch Old Regular Baptist Church. And if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.

May we all challenge ourselves to create such a moment in our own world, this week and in the weeks to come.

To reach across a barrier that we’ve erected to make ourselves feel safe, and to invite the Holy Spirit to move through us in whatever way God wills.

For a brief moment we may feel scattered and confused but this feeling is only temporary, as our ears and hearts begin to open to a language that is both strange and unfamiliar but speaks to us as if it were our own.

This is the language of God’s unconditional love.

May we hear it, and speak it, as often as we can.

Amen.

I had a dream...

I'm having one of those moments where I'm beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel, but I have a sinking feeling that it's the light of an oncoming train...
I've managed to tick off a whole slew of papers on my "To Do" List, and the three that are left are monumental but manageable. Somehow I got all of my Mid Program Review paperwork done and found a meeting time next Tuesday that worked for all five parties involved. I led Worship and preached for the last time at my Field Ed site this past Sunday (see sermon below). I've gotten a start on the required reading for the Appalachia trip that begins in 2 weeks. And I've even started to put together the bulletin and the sermon for Pentecost Sunday, the first Sunday that I begin covering for my pastor while she is on sabbatical for 3 months...(yes, I'm way early on this this, but between final papers and the Appalachia trip it's now or never!)

The "oncoming train" premonition reared it's anxious head in my dreams last night, where I had no less than four separate dreams about screwing up on my first Sunday of the sabbatical coverage.

Anxiety Dream #1 had me sitting in a pew in my home church, wearing a t-shirt and my flannel lounge pants, and juggling all the resources that I'm using to put together the Pentecost service. The problem: it WAS Pentecost Sunday and I was due to start the service in 5 minutes. [No biggie, I've had this "OMG, I'm not ready!" kind of dream before...haven't we all?]

Anxiety Dream #2 - this time the service had started and I was in the fellowship hall with all my clothes spread out in piles around me trying to figure out what to wear. I couldn't find my pants, and I was seriously considering not wearing any since my robe was so long no one would notice (!!!). The service was more than half over before I chose to do just that. [Hmmmm....I'm noticing a "I'm wearing the wrong clothes" theme developing here.]

Anxiety Dream #3 - in this dream I managed to find the right clothing and get my robe on but I was an hour late showing up for the service and it was already over. I remember being cognizant that this was a dream and if I just "imagined" that I was back at the start of the service it would rewind and all would be well. [Gee, I wish that would work in real life...]

Anxiety Dream #4 - the service is over, I'm in the church office strolling around in my robe feeling all high and mighty because it went well, when a congregant walks in seeking help with a problem and I begin a frantic search for "the Pastor" not realizing that I'm it. [it is interesting to note that in this dream the church office was housed in a large, open and airy loft space with modern furniture, high tech computers, and a large staff busily at work....this is how I knew it was a dream ;-) ]

As noted, anxiety dreams are nothing new for me, especially the night before I'm due to preach in a new setting...but FOUR dreams in one night? And a month away from the actual date? I'm sure it's connected to the fact that I sat down last night and made a list of all the things I need to get done between now and then and realized that I actually have very little time to get it all done.

It also stems from listening to fellow students describe their Field Ed experiences where they were essentially left 'in charge' to field a myriad of pastoral and logistic requests from congregants. At my Field Ed site I was never given that responsibility - other than leading worship and adult ed classes - and thus the congregants at my site never approached me with such requests because they did not see me in that role.

I suspect that I will spend a great deal of time this summer feeling like I did on the first day of my first job, and the first day of every job I've had since then.... There will be times when I'll feel overwhelmed by all there is to learn; I'll be unsure about how much help I can offer given all there is I have not yet learned; and I'll question whether I haven't made the biggest mistake of my life in thinking that I could do this job in the first place.

But I made it through all those first days, and I'll make it through this one.
Even if it does feel at times like I'm dodging an oncoming train!

Sermon: "Peter, Paul and Mary"

Third Sunday in Easter

April 18, 2010

“Paul was a zealous, stubborn, committed iconoclast. He firmly believed that God had done something new in the world in the person of Jesus the Christ. Those of us who share his faith, even if we disagree with some of his stances, may do well to attend to his manner of proclaiming it.”

- Sandra Hack Polaski, A Feminist Introduction to Paul

Scripture Lessons:

Acts 9:1-20

John 21:1-19

“Peter, Paul, and Mary”

Mary was in the Garden.

The sun was just beginning to peek over the hillside, casting an orange glow across her face.

Her breathing was rapid and heavy, and sweat was beading on her forehead.

Her heart felt as if it was pounding out of her chest.

Not 20 minutes before she was running through the streets of Jerusalem, shadowed in the darkness before dawn, still clutching the basket of precious oils against her stomach.

She had run to the house where John and Simon Peter slept to tell them of what she had seen.

The stone rolled back from its resting place.

The tomb empty and exposed to the cool early morning air.

Her eyes had not been playing tricks on her. What she reported to John and Peter had really occurred. They came running back with her to confirm what she had seen.

But they just stood in the mouth of the tomb looking befuddled. Staring at the folded piles of linens as if they were trapped in a waking dream. Rubbing sleep from their eyes, they returned to their lodgings.

Leaving Mary behind to stare at the gaping hole, her chest heaving from the sobs that she could no longer hold inside.

Where was the body of her beloved teacher? Who had taken it and why?

On the fringes of her awareness she sensed the presence of a gardener standing beside her.

But her eyes remained fixed on the empty space before her, and in the brightening light of the garden, Mary wept.

***

Peter felt numb.

He and James and John and Nathanael and Thomas, and two others of their brethren, had wandered the streets of Jerusalem in a fog for days. Now after a weeks walk they had returned home to Galilee, and sat together as a group in the dark of night, staring out at the rolling waves of the sea of Tiberius.

The cold wind was biting into their flesh, but still, Peter felt nothing.

The thrill of the apparent resurrection of their teacher, and friend, had begun to wear off. The world did not come to an end. Judgment day had not arrived. Creation had not been renewed.

Had what they had seen in the locked room in Jerusalem really occurred? Even Thomas was beginning to question what just a few weeks before had been as true to him as the sun rising in the morning.

The threat of possible arrest that had hung over their heads seemed to have dissipated, and the disciples felt that it was finally safe to return home.

They didn’t know where else to go.

Their money had run out. Their families still needed to be fed.

Even if they had continued on their mission, how would they even begin to explain what had occurred? Who would believe them?

And who would believe Peter? The man who denied that he even knew Jesus, not once, but three times. Who would trust a man who now had a reputation for being dishonest and disloyal?

Simon Peter stood and leaned straight into the teeth of the wind, looking out at the vastness of the blackened sea.

"I am going fishing," he said to the others.

They said to him, "We will go with you."

Then these seven disciples of Jesus walked into the swirling waves,

got into the boat, and pushed off from the shore.

They cast their nets all night long, heaving the heavy mass of twisted ropes into the sea over and over again, but they caught nothing.

Demoralized and having lost their last shred of hope, they headed back to land, just as the dawn broke over the horizon.

Peter’s shoulder’s sagged, as he sat with his eyes cast downward staring at the bottom of the boat. The shallow waves lapping at the side indicating they had reached the shoreline…Peter had not yet noticed the lone figure standing on the beach, patiently awaiting his arrival.

***

Saul of Tarsus was a man on a mission.

His stride was long and purposeful as he kicked through the dust on the road to Damascus. His right hand men he had enlisted to travel with him marched at his side, encircling him like a human shield, protecting him from potential attack from apostates and marauders along the road.

Saul was not a big man in stature, but he was a rising star in the ranks of the Temple leadership and he had made a name for himself as the one charged with eradicating the blight of the so called Jesus movement.

Saul had serous business to attend to in Damascus.

The high priest of Jerusalem had relented to his demand that the letters addressed to the synagogues of the surrounding cities be turned over to him for examination. Any hint of evidence that men or women who resided in these cities were followers of this rogue Jewish sect known as The Way would warrant swift and punitive action.

Saul had discovered the existence of just such a ring in several of the letters addressed to Damascus. His anger at this discovery was palpable.

As a Pharisee, an appointed watchdog of the law, he loathed these people of the “The Way.” They were heretics and blasphemers, and they dared to make the claim that some backcountry Nazarene criminal who was put to death by the Roman state nearly 3 years before, was the Messiah, the anointed one, a true prophet of God.

These people were vile. If needed, he would burst into their homes and drag them kicking and screaming into the street, men and women alike.

He would not stop until every last believer of this depraved sect was imprisoned or eliminated. He had heartily approved of the execution of that rabble-rouser Stephen, and the others of his ilk, those vermin disciples named Peter and James, would soon meet the same fate.

As Saul and his companions neared the outskirts of Damascus the noonday sun moved directly overhead. Saul wiped his brow and lifted his gaze upward at the source of this unrelenting heat.

Suddenly there was a blinding flash, as if a thousand stars had exploded in the heavens, and the mighty Saul of Tarsus fell to the ground.

***

Paul, Peter, and Mary.

Three stories of three people standing on the precipice of change.

These tellings of these three stories take us right up to the moment before conversion.

The moment before everything in their world was turned upside down.

Mary saw the empty tomb and her first assumption was that Jesus’ body had been taken away.

Then Jesus appeared to Mary in the garden, called her by name, showed her that his prediction of his resurrection was true, and told her to go tell the others.

Mary was converted from a doubter to a witness and a believer.

Peter denied that he knew Jesus three times on the night of Jesus’ arrest.

Then Jesus appeared to Peter on the beach, called him by name, gave him three opportunities to proclaim his love for his teacher and friend, and told him to feed and tend to his sheep.

Peter was converted from a denier to a trustworthy and loyal leader.

Saul persecuted the Jewish Christians because he believed that they followed a false Messiah.

Then Jesus appeared to Saul on the road to Damascus, called him by name, showed him in dramatic fashion that he was indeed sent by God, and told him where he would find the man who would open his eyes to the truth.

Saul became Paul, and was converted from a violent persecutor to an ardent evangelist for the cause.

Three stories, three conversions, three lives changed forever.

The Gospel writers tell us these stories not just to lift them up as extraordinary examples of extraordinary individuals who were changed by an encounter with the risen Christ.

But to lift them up as ordinary examples of ordinary individuals who were changed by an encounter with God.

God met Mary in her grief.

God met Peter in his despair.

God met Saul in his anger.

God meets us in the same way.

These stories are our stories.

At some point in our lives we’ve all stood in the garden weeping over a loss.

We’ve all sat in the boat casting our eyes downward in dejection.

We’ve all walked along the road clenching our fists and seething with righteous indignation.

We’ve all stood on the precipice of conversion.

The moment where we are given the choice to change our lives,

and given the chance to change the world.

Some of us have had memorable moments of conversion.

The moment where we reached the end of our rope or hit rock bottom, and we reached out to find something to hold onto, and we found God.

Some of us have more gradual conversion experiences.

Where we sensed that something was not right in our lives or in the world and we began to make changes for the better.

Some of us have never had what we would call a conversion experience.

What we have are moments of confirmation.

The positive experiences that validate our choice to live our lives in love and compassion.

Regardless of how we’ve experienced conversion in our lives, what our lectionary readings have to teach us today is that our conversion, the impulse we feel to change our lives and our world, is an ongoing opportunity.

There is never a point where our conversion is complete.

And there is never a point where we can claim we are too far gone to change.

The conversion of Saul to Paul, which we heard in our reading from ACTS, is perhaps the most dramatic example of this.

Paul’s is a true night and day conversion.

And given his zealous personality it’s no wonder that Paul worked to spread the Christian message just as fervently as he once worked to oppress it.

But why did God call Saul to become Paul?

The most obvious answer is because he was a threat to the Jesus movement’s survival. If Saul did not have his conversion experience, where would the Christian church be today? Most likely there would be no church.

The strange little sect of Jewish Christians known as “The Way” would have died out like many others that came before. Saul would have rounded up the disciples and either had them killed or thrown them into prison for life.

The spread of the gospel would have never gone beyond the settlements of Judea.

We might also consider that God called Saul to conversion because God knew that Paul was the best sales and marketing man around.

Paul was what sociologists call a connector. Connectors are socially extroverted individuals who know a lot of people and who use those connections to their advantage.

Author Malcolm Gladwell addresses this phenomenon in his book, The Tipping Point. Gladwell uses the story of the ride of Paul Revere as an example of the influence that connectors have in our world.

On the night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere and William Dawes set out separately on horseback and rode from Boston towards Lexington to warn the populace that the British were planning an attack.

Revere rode the northern route, and Dawes rode the southern route.

In the towns that Revere passed through, the leaders were alerted, church bells rang out, and those informed by Revere sent out riders of their own. The news spread like a virus and the next day the British were soundly defeated in Concord by the colonial militia.

In contrast, the local militia leaders in the towns that Dawes rode through – Roxbury, Brookline, Watertown, and Waltham - were never alerted and few men from those towns turned out to fight. So few men turned out from Waltham that some historians concluded that the town was pro-British. It wasn’t. Waltham didn’t find out the British were coming until it was too late.

What made the difference between these two rides is that Revere had the social gifts of a connector, Dawes did not. While Dawes’ social circle didn’t extend beyond the city of Boston, Revere would routinely ride between Boston, New York and Philadelphia making connections along the way.

On that fateful night in 1775, Revere knew where to find all the local militia and town leaders, he knew which doors to knock on first, and he thought nothing of stopping strangers on the street to tell them the news.

Paul of Tarsus was cut from the same social cloth as Paul Revere. As a rising star in the Temple he was well connected and knew exactly who he could count on and who he needed to avoid. He was well traveled and already had connections in far-flung cities, and his social gifts allowed him to easily make connections in the cities that were new to him. And once he established these connections he used his pastoral skills and knowledge of rhetoric to dash off letters that kept the faithful encouraged and inline.

Regardless of our own personal feelings about Paul’s theology or his teachings – which I’m sure will come up in the sermon talk-back in today’s forum – we must admit that without Paul we probably would not be here today talking about his influence on the Christian church, because there wouldn’t have been a Christian church to influence.

Paul’s conversion is an extreme example of how God calls us to live out the gospel of Jesus Christ. The good news of the gospel is that the recreation of this world is not complete - we are called to live as Jesus did – in love and compassion – and in partnership with God we will re-create the world anew.

This is the message of the resurrection – God is doing something NEW in the world and we are a part of the plan to make it happen.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t react to this news with the same fervor and enthusiasm that Paul showed. Our reaction is more like that of the disciples.

In our reading from John’s gospel, we find that the disciples, after having experienced the resurrection of their beloved teacher and friend, did not run shouting into the streets proclaiming the news of this new thing that God had done in the world.

They still lived in fear for their lives, and Peter was weighed down with the guilt of his denial.

The resurrection did not change them. Instead, they went home, and they went fishing as if nothing had ever happened.

We do much the same today, when we fill our church sanctuaries on Easter Sunday proclaiming that “Christ is Risen indeed!” and then return to our lives as if this had no bearing on our day-to-day existence.

We are not truly changed by the resurrection.

We’re not truly changed by this new thing that God has done in the world.

We’re not truly changed by the gospel – the Good News of God’s unconditional love and compassion.

We’re not truly changed because we don’t always understand how these words that we hear in church every Sunday are meant to connect with our lives.

A recent poll of churchgoers in 3 Christian denominations revealed that while 90% enjoyed listening to sermons, and 62% said that sermons gave them a sense of God’s love and helped them to understand Jesus,

only 17% said that sermons have motivated them to change –

to make changes in themselves, or to seek change in the world.

As a future pastor, I can say that this is where we have failed you.

This is evidence of a disconnect going on between what we hear Jesus calling us to do and what we actually do in our lives.

Why does any of this matter? We may ask.

It matters because the world is not going to change unless WE work together with God to change it. We are an integral part of God’s plan.

And it is through moments of conversion, big and small, that God calls us by name and sends us out to do the work that needs to be done.

God called Mary, and God called Peter, and God called Paul.

And God calls us.

And just as Jesus called Peter out of the boat and commissioned him to feed and tend to his sheep, Jesus calls us out this boat, out of this nave, to go out into the world and do the same.

To move outside the walls of this sanctuary and to work together to make the world a better place for all of creation.

To create a world that lives and breathes love and compassion and justice and peace.

The gospel is nothing if it does not change our life.

What change – what conversion – will you experience today?

Amen

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall.....

I'm staring at yet another blank page.
This one is my application for CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) next Fall.
Sample questions on the application:

1. Give a reasonably full account of your life including important events and relationships with persons who have been significant to you, and the impact of these on your development. Describe your family of origin, current family, supportive social relationships, and your educational experience.
2. Discuss the development of your religious life, religious organizations you have affiliated with, your participation in the life and ministry of your tradition, your decision to follow a vocation in ministry, and other religious experiences.

Blah, blah, blah, blah........

I'm just soooooo tired of answering these questions.
For three years I've been answering these questions.
For my seminary applications, for my UCC In-Care application and yearly reviews, for my Psych Evaluation, for my Field Ed interviews, for my upcoming Mid-Program review in which I have to review and update my entrance essay to include answers to a whole slew of theological and "growth" questions......and don't get me started on the Ordination Paper that I'll need to write next year.

Every time we start a new semester inevitably at least one professor wants us to write a "getting to know you" reflection essay in which we recount our spiritual/life journey in relation to whatever the topic of the class is.
The application I just turned in for the Border Crossing trip to Appalachia included a page of questions asking us to describe our background, our expectations for the trip, and an "out of our comfort zone" immersion experience that we've had.
In Field Ed I have to write weekly Theological Reflections, attend weekly and monthly meetings to reflect on my experiences, and I just handed in a four-page reflection on my progress/growth for the mid-year review.
And let's face it, writing a sermon is often just one long reflection, I may not be reflecting on my story (although there is an element of that) but I am reflecting on the ways in which THE STORY of our faith/tradition intersects with our stories.

Reflect. Reflect. Reflect.
I feel like I'm living in a world with mirrored walls where I can't get away from my own image.
I'm so tired of swimming inside my own head.
I doubt if aspirants in other professions have to go through this....
"Well Joe, you're half-way through plumbing school now, can you tell us how installing that toilet made you feel and in what ways it has led to your growth?"

I'm just whining because I don't want to write my CPE application.
Some of it can be cut and pasted from previous reflections but all these applications seem to ask the questions in a slightly different way or want answers to specific questions, which requires extensive editing and further reflecting.

Blah.

This is why I'm looking forward to the Lenten series that I'm leading at my field ed site.
We'll be discussing how we would answer the questions of Jesus:
"Who do you say that I am?" (Mark 8:29)
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34)
"Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things?" (Luke 24:26)
"Why do doubt arise in your hearts?" (Luke 24:38)

In answering these questions we'll touch on:
Christology: Who is Jesus to us?; theodicy: Where is God in our suffering?; atonement theory: Why did Jesus have to die?; and the Resurrection: What do we believe happened and how does it inform our faith?

The good part about all this is that I get to hear how the people in the pews would answer these questions. I get to hear the reflections of others for a change. And I'm hoping we'll all get to know each other a little better in the process.
Gasp! I may actually spend some time in seminary listening and ministering to others instead of spending hours gazing at my own reflection? Horrors!

Sermon: "Our Lenten Journey"

Ash Wednesday Service

February 17, 2010

“But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:17-18)

"Our Lenten Journey"

Welcome aboard fellow travelers.

This is our departure point on our Lenten Journey.

Our tour will begin here on Ash Wednesday and along the way we’ll be making stops at Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and we will end our journey at daybreak on Easter Sunday. I suggest that you tighten your seat belts, secure any loose belongings and keep your hands inside the car at all times because it’s going to be a roller coaster of a ride.

We’ll begin here in the dimly lit entryway of Ash Wednesday where we’ll leave behind any unneeded baggage and receive a symbolic marking that will grant us access to all areas of the Lenten Journey.

I pray that you ate well before arriving here, as fasting is encouraged from this point onward.

As we move forward from Ash Wednesday we will gradually descend through the long, darkened tunnel of Lent. Here it will seem as if the walls are lined with mirrors - as we’ll be encouraged to look deeply at the images that we project to the world and examine how we might change the direction in which we’ve been moving - To move closer to love – love of self, love of neighbor, love of God - and further away from fear – fear of failure, fear of change, fear of our own mortality.

After 40 days and 40 nights of fasting and reflection we’ll gain altitude once again and ascend to the plateau of Palm Sunday. Here we will briefly emerge into the light of day and raise our hands in triumph at the arrival of Jesus, our beloved brother and guide, before dropping down once again into the darkened tunnel of Holy Week.

As we descend, we will quickly gather momentum until we hit bottom on Maundy Thursday. You are forewarned that on this day, water may splash over the sides of the car and your feet may get wet.

At this point on the journey we will share a meal together and remember the last night that Jesus spent on earth. As we exit Maundy Thursday the few remaining lights inside the Lenten tunnel will dim to black, and we will press on in silence.

As we move into Good Friday our tour will then slow to a crawl.

This section of the journey is not for the faint of heart.

The sights and the sounds that we’ll experience there are not pleasant but I encourage you to resist the urge to cover your eyes and plug your ears,

for we cannot truly experience the thrill and the joy of the height that is to come unless we first know what it is like to go through this valley.

The painful images, the cries of anguish, the metallic taste of fear in our mouths, and the smell of death will all converge and overwhelm our senses.

But then, just as abruptly as this torment began, it will end.

And the world will fall silent.

On Holy Saturday, our tour will come to a complete stop. We will sit in the darkened stillness of the tunnel. And we will wait.

We’ve been told that the exit lies just around the bend, but we can’t know for sure. At this point we will feel disoriented and lost.

It will seem as if our beloved guide has abandoned us, leaving us to find our own way home.

But as the sun rises on Easter morning we will see a thin shaft of light glowing in the distance, and we will begin to move forward once again.

Soon this pinpoint of light will grow to illuminate the walls and the floor and the ceiling around us.

As we exit the Lenten tunnel and emerge into the light of Easter morning, feel free to let loose with shouts of joy and to sing Halleluiah - as we feel the warmth of the sun on our skin and smell the sweet scent of freshly tilled earth all around us.

There we will get our first glimpse of new creation, new life, the resurrection of all that is good and holy.

It is there that Jesus, our beloved brother and guide, will step forward once again to greet us, to welcome us home after our long and tiring journey, and to offer us rest in the loving arms of God.

But we can’t get there, unless we begin here.

Here in the dimly lit entryway of Ash Wednesday.

It is here that we scrub our faces clean and anoint our heads with oil.

It is here that we offer alms and pray to God for forgiveness.

It is here that we begin our fast.

A fast that has little to do with depriving ourselves of what we want or desire, and very much to do with letting go of what we no longer need.

Our sins. Our sorrows. Our guilt. Our shame.

The pain and regret we feel for having wronged another.

The anger and resentment we feel against those who have wronged us.

The fear we feel when we contemplate our own mortality.

The emptiness we feel when we’ve distanced ourselves from God.

It is here on Ash Wednesday that we make a conscious effort to take all these things and lay them at our feet.

To spread them out on the ground so we can get a better look at them.

To say to our self, “These are the burdens that I’ve been carrying.

What is it that God wants me to carry?

And what is it that God wants me to leave behind?”

The point of receiving ashes is to remind us that eventually it will all be left behind.

Returning to the dust from which it was created.

Yesterday afternoon, as I watched the snow falling on the Andover Newton campus and sat mesmerized as the large yet delicate flakes drifted slowly to the ground - it was not hard to imagine that it was not snow that was falling, but ash.

As it blanketed the grass and weighed heavily on every branch of every tree, the world took on an eerie mono-chromatic silence.

The greens and the browns and the reds and the yellows, were obliterated under a layer of ashen white.

I was struck that on the eve of Ash Wednesday, nature had chosen to paint over what God had created, as if to prepare the canvas for something entirely new to appear.

Normally when I gaze out my window on campus and I see one of my classmates walking in the distance, with just a glance I can tell you who they are. Even if they’re too far away for me to see their face, I find familiar clues in their gait, their build, or even the color of their clothing.

Yesterday, their identities were a mystery to me. Bundled up in hats and heavy coats, moving quickly through the falling snow, each person looked just the same as the other.

It was as if nature was using the ashen snow to paint over us as well.

And why not.

We are part of creation.

We are not exempt from the cycle of life and death.

In Genesis, God said to Adam “You will return to the ground for out of it you were taken. You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

From this we learn humility, for we die just as the leaves on the trees die, but we also learn that we are not above creation, but a part of it.

And God aches to be in relationship with creation,

God aches to be in relationship with us,

and we ache to be in relationship with God.

And all that stuff we’ve spread at our feet, all the stuff that we’ve been carrying around for years, this is what is getting in the way of our relationship with God.

So every year on Ash Wednesday, we come together in community and receive a smudge of ash across our foreheads.

To remind us that we’re not going to live forever, and the time to unburden ourselves and move into the loving embrace of God is now.

Now understandably, contemplating our own mortality and taking a good hard look at our shortcomings, is not something that we are eager to do. Which is why many of us choose to skip this stage of the Lenten journey.

In choosing to walk with Christ we’re often tempted to walk just part of the way. To skip joyfully by his side during the celebratory times and to run on ahead during the painful times.

Perhaps because spending 40 days in the wilderness picking at our scabs is too much for us to bear.

Perhaps because contemplating Jesus’ suffering reminds us too much of our own.

Perhaps because witnessing his death forces us to face the fact that we too will one day die.

But if our focus is only on the living Jesus, and the risen Jesus, are we missing the point of the incarnation? Are we neglecting to see that God so ached to be in relation with us that God became one of us - so we might know God better and God might know us better. And part of becoming one of us is to know what it is like to suffer and to die.

As we leave here and continue on our Lenten Journey I encourage you to see it through to the end.

To resist the inclination to fast forward to the high points, moving from Christmas to Palm Sunday to Easter Morning, touching only the mountain tops and avoiding the valleys below.

To take the time to visit Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday.

We know the resurrection is coming, but lets not be in such a hurry to get there.

Let’s walk along with Jesus as he trembles in the shadow of the cross.

Let’s spend some time in the wilderness pealing off the layers that prevent us from moving closer to God.

Let’s invite nature to take its ashen paint, and brush it across our forehead,

preparing a fresh canvas for God to create anew.

Amen.