Author: Dennis

Being Church-May 11, 2014

Fourth Sunday of Easter Year A
(Good Shepherd Sunday)
John 10:1-10 and Acts 2:42-47

anjolie-ela-menon-good-shepherd-paintings-oilThe fourth Sunday of Easter is what has generally been called Good Shepherd Sunday. Several Passages talk about Jesus or God as a shepherd. In John 10 where Jesus refers to himself as the Good Shepherd. We can look at this passage as being about God being the shepherd and that we sheep are to be good followers. But it can also mean  God’s relation with God’s church. God cares for us and looks after us in ways we can’t imagine, because God is in love with us; God has a relationship with us. A community that is loved by the God of the universe is called to care for one another- not because it’s something we have to do, but because it’s who we are. And when people see a local congregation living as a Christ-led, hospitable community, they will take notice.

Acts 2:42-47 says the church is called to be a place where we learn to be a follower of Christ. The church is a place where we have fellowship with each other, where we care and love each other. The church is a place where we realize that our material possessions are not the goal in our lives, but to use what we have to help those in need, especially those in our community, but also those outside of it. The church is a place where we come together and break bread in table fellowship together, realizing that it is Christ that calls us to the table regardless of who we are. The church is a place where we are happy in Christ and are generous to friends and strangers.

Download this week’s lesson.

Marching Orders- May 4, 2014

May 4, 2014- Third Sunday of Easter, Year A

Luke 24:13-25

breaking bread emmausFood doesn’t just bring needed nourishment to us, but it’s a context that brings people together. I remember eating arroz con pollo and talking in Spanish to my abuela, or grandmother. I remember eating so much soul food that I probably needed angioplasty at a family event in Louisiana a few years back, but it was also a wonderful time to get reaquainted with my southern relatives.

Here in Luke 24 we encounter another story concerning the ressurection. It’s the road to Emmaus where Jesus appears in disguise to two of his disciples. They had thought Jesus was the one that would save them, and now their savior was dead. They told this disguised Jesus that it was already the third day since his death and in Jewish tradition, this meant that the soul had left the body, meaning there was no hope that Jesus would ever come back. These two had lost hope and were alone. They had placed their hopes on this one called Jesus and it had all ended so badly.

Jesus is kept hidden from the two disciples.  We don’t know why that is, but it is only at the breaking of the bread that they discovered Jesus was with them all along.

If you want to know who Jesus is, look at the meals Jesus ate.  These are the places where he reveals himself to the world.  The calling of Matthew the tax collector, the “sinful” woman who annointed Jesus, Zacheus and other events showed a God that cared for the lost, hurting and broken.

This is the savior we worship, one that is made known to us in meals. As followers of Jesus, do our meals, at our communion tables and at all of our tables reveal the something about the Risen Savior?

Sermon: “The Healing Power of Collard Greens”

Sermon: “The Healing Power of Collard Greens”.

I love good food, and it probably shows.
emmaus
I consider myself lucky to be born in the family that I’m in, because I grew up with two wonderful cooking traditions. On my father’s side is the African American tradition of the Deep South. It’s a tradition of fried chicken, collard greens, mac and cheese, cornbread stuffing and sweet potato pie. It is all fattening and it’s all good.

Continue reading  Sermon: “The Healing Power of Collard Greens”.

Come Sunday: “What Would Jesus Drive?” (October 27, 2013)

23rd Sunday of Pentecost
October 27, 2013
Luke 18:9-14

Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself.”
Luke 18:14 (The Message)

suvBeing from Michigan and having two parents who worked in the auto plants, I tend to have a fascination with cars.  I tend like most cars, but for a long time, I didn’t have much interest in SUVs.

Ah, the SUV-Sport Utility Vehicle.  In the late 90s it ruled American suburbs.  It seemed that ever auto maker had to make one, and the kept getting bigger and bigger.  Remember the Hummer?  I remember someone telling me the big Ford Expedition got something like 9 miles to the gallon.  I remember thinking how horrible that was.  I saw SUVs as a scourge, harming the environment and making us lazy.

Around the same time that the SUV was large and in charge, another car was making itself known in the American market.  In 2001, we saw Toyota unveil the Prius, a gas-electric hybrid.  It was the anti-SUV.  People who despised SUVs (and the people who drove them) flocked to the Prius to show how conscious they were. (For the record, I did own a Prius a few years ago.)

The first decade of the new century set up conflict between those that loved the big gas guzzling SUVs and those that loved the fuel sipping hybrids.  For a while there, a campaign made news urging people to use less resource heavy transportation than the SUV.  The campaign came up with these simple words: “What would Jesus Drive?”  The answer was that Jesus wasn’t going to be driving a Hummer anytime soon.

When I think about this week’s gospel lesson, I have to think of it in terms of cars.  (I even did a sermon based on the Prius back in 2007.)  I can see the Pharisee driving a Prius to the temple.  He gets out and starts praying to God, “thanking” God for making all the right choices.  He shops at Whole Foods, recycles and even drives Prius (his second Prius, by the way).  “I thank you God, that I am not like that guy,” he says guestering at the SUV pulling up to the curb.

Another man climbs down from the tall vehicle.  He slams the door and falls down to the ground.  He’s behind on his mortgage, his oldest son and his son’s wife won’t leave to find a place of their own.  His wife was laid off her job the week before and she found out about the affair he was having.  She was tired of dealing with his philandering and his alcoholism to boot.  After 18 years, she is ready for a divorce.

“Have mercy on me, God!  I’ve messed up!”

The reason the Pharisee didn’t go home justified isn’t because he did something wrong.  He did all the right things.  What he missed is relying on God’s mercy; to know that even if he did the right things, he was still in need of God- something that the tax collector understood all too well.

As we head to church this Sunday, I pray that we can not get caught up in doing the right things, but instead realize that we are made righteous not because of what we have done, but because of what God has done.

By the way, I think Jesus would have taken public transportation, but that’s for another time.

 

Come Sunday: Not for the Faint of Heart (October 20, 2013)

widow22nd Sunday of Pentecost
October 20, 2013
Luke 18:1-8

“Do you hear what that judge, corrupt as he is, is saying? So what makes you think God won’t step in and work justice for his chosen people, who continue to cry out for help? Won’t he stick up for them? I assure you, he will. He will not drag his feet.

Luke 18:6-8 (The Message)

Growing old is not for the weak.

This past summer, my partner and I were busy shuttling between Minnesota and Michigan to move my parents from their house of over 40 years to a senior housing apartment complex on the other side.  It was getting difficult for my octogenerian parents to maneuver around the house.  The neighborhood they lived in, on the northside of my hometown of Flint, Michigan had become more and more dicey, especially in the last few years as the auto industry imploded.  Moving my parents allowed me to see how aging is not something for the weak.  The independence that one had in their youth and middle ages is not as present.  Your body just doesn’t work like it used to.  You become more dependent on others.  It’s just not easy to be elderly.

The gospel text for today involves a widow, a woman who was incredibly vulnerable in that society, and a judge that was more than a little shady.  This woman who probably had little pride left, kept pressing the judge to grant her justice against an enemy.  She basically wears down the judge until he does what she asks just to get her off his back.

Now, God isn’t the unjust judge.  The point of this parable is not that you see God as some kind of holy Santa Claus that you pester until you get your way.  I think this parable has more to do with how we live a life of faith.

We are asked to believe and walk in faith.  But the road is not clear.  We never know how the story will end.  Like the widow, we must keep believing and pray persistently; not to get what we want, but because we have faith that God will answer in God’s time.

God’s time.  That kind of sucks.  Jesus talks about how God will listen to his children and grant them justice, but we know that sometimes our prayers aren’t answered- or at least they aren’t answered in our time or in the way we would like.

I think having the kind of persistent faith Jesus talks about is rather hard.  And maybe that’s the point; trusting in God is rather tough business.  Like growing old, it is something that leaves us rather vulnerable.  I think God knows that having faith in God is hard, which is why I think we don’t have to do it alone.  Maybe that’s one of the reasons we have churches- communities where we can bear each other and believe when others just can’t.

There’s an old African American gospel song whose lyrics include this passage: “He may not come when you want to, but he’s right on time.”

The life of faith can be hard.  However, we know that God is faithful and will be with us, even in those days where God seems distant.

Faith is not for the weak.  Thanks be to God that we don’t have to trust alone.

Come Sunday: “Let’s Get Liminal” (October 13, 2013)

liminal

21st Sunday of Pentecost

October 13, 2013

Luke 17:11-19

They went, and while still on their way, became clean. One of them, when he realized that he was healed, turned around and came back, shouting his gratitude, glorifying God. He kneeled at Jesus’ feet, so grateful. He couldn’t thank him enough—and he was a Samaritan.

-Luke 17:14-16

lim·i·nal /ˈlimənl/- 1. of or relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process. 2. occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.

 

liminalBorders are interesting things.  I grew up in Michigan only an hour in two directions to the US/Canadian border.  When driving accross a border, you stop at a booth where someone from Customs asks why you are coming to their fair nation and what are your intentions.  After looking at our passports, the officer waves us through to a new nation.

Borders, especially land crossings, are interesting because one moment you are here and the next there.  You could walk from here to there quite easily if it weren’t for those customs officers that stand in your way.  Borders are like going through the looking glass into another reality, something that is familiar and yet very different.

In preparing for this sermon, a word kept showing  up in the online commentaries I was reading: liminal.  I’ve heard it being used more and more in religious contexts to describe the times we live in; the in between time, on the edge of something better. I kept wondering what liminal had to do with this passage.  As I think about it, the passage has everything to do with being liminal.  Actually, Jesus is all about the liminal.  Jesus seemed to stand in the middle of things, in the borderlands.  Jesus seems to be all about crossing boundaries.  Here’s Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman at the well.  There’s him healing a woman considered unclean.  In this passage he heals ten lepers.  He decides to cross the boundary that separated him from these lepers.  Because he crossed a boundary, one of the ex-lepers comes back to thank Jesus for healing him and that man happened to be a Samaritan.

As I am writing this, we are finishing up day 10 of the federal government shutdown.  I know people have their views on who is to blame, but what is striking me is how polarized we have become as a society.  Republicans over here, Democrats over there.  We humans are good at creating barriers, walls and fences at our borders to keep the other out.

And yet, Jesus walks in and cross the border with ease.

The Samaritan ex-leper was thankful for being healed.  Maybe we should be thankful for a God that is liminal, that breaks boundaries and heals us.

But there is another understanding of being liminal.  That meaning is basically being at the threshold of something.  Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem where he would suffer and die.  Each stop along the way was part of a process, bringing him closer and closer to a moment where everything would change.

When I thought of this second meaning, a song immediately popped in my head.  It’s a song from the 80s, but it feels at times like it came out yesterday.  It’s the song “Verge of a Miracle” by the late Rich Mullins.  Mullins was a contemporary Christian artist that was popular in the 80s and 90s and this song was one of his early hits.  The chorus goes:

You’re on the verge of a miracle
Standing there – oh –
You’re on the verge of a miracle
Just waiting to be believed in
Open your eyes and see
You’re on the verge of a miracle

I think that our lives as Christians are ones that are perched at the threshold of something, something we don’t always know.  What if we saw our daily walk as one where we are on the verge of a miracle?  What if we saw these miracles as times where we cross borders and become agents of healing?

Go and be church.

Come Sunday: “Part-Time Lover” (September 8, 2013)

Sixteenth Sunday of Pentecost (Year C)

September 8, 2013

Luke 14:25-33

One day when large groups of people were walking along with him, Jesus turned and told them, “Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one’s own self!—can’t be my disciple. Anyone who won’t shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can’t be my disciple.

–Luke 14:25-27 (The Message)

part_time_helpOn September 8, 2002, I was ordained a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).  As I reflect on eleven years in ministry, I’ve noticed something: every ministerial position I’ve had has been part-time.  I spent the last five years as part-time Associate Pastor in Minneapolis, and this Sunday I begin as the Supply Pastor of a church northeast of St. Paul.

I actutally like working part-time.  In most cases, the churches couldn’t fund a full time position, which is was okay by me.  I was still able to do ministry, though it was far more limited than what could be done as a full-time pastor.

When you’re a part-time clergyperson, especially if you have another job, you have to learn how to manage your time.  Since we only have 24 hours in the day, I have to decide what is most important to get done.  Somehow, I’ve managed to pull it off.  That said, being part-time with another job means that you aren’t always focused.  You have to deal with two things vying for attention which can weaken your committment to both.

In the gospel lesson for today, we see Jesus telling the crowds that to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus, they need to “hate” their families and even their own lives.  That’s a harsh statement to hear.  How many of us want to tell off our relatives?  We don’t like this passage (well, at least I don’t like it) because it’s so black and white.  There’s no room for a part-time lover; you’re either all in or you’re not.

I wonder though if we are looking at the text wrong.  What if Jesus isn’t calling us to hate our mothers and fathers and siblings, but is calling us to place everything, including our families under the lordship of Jesus.  What if Jesus is saying that to be a follower means that every aspect of our lives is given over to God?

The late Dallas Willard wrote about this passage.  He thought this was less about some kind of drugery, where we have to give up things we love and instead “count the cost” in a spirit of joy:

So this counting of the cost is not a moaning and groaning session. “Oh how terrible it is that I have to value all of my ‘wonderful’ things (which are probably making life miserable and hopeless anyway) less than I do living in the kingdom! How terrible that I must be prepared actually to surrender them should that be called for!” The counting of the cost is to bring us to the point of clarity and decisiveness. It is to help us to see. Counting the cost is precisely what the persons with the pearl and the hidden treasure did. Out of it came their decisiveness and joy. It is decisiveness and joy that are the outcomes of the counting.

What this passage in Luke is about is clarity. It is not about misery or about some incredibly dreadful price that one must pay to be Jesus’ apprentice. There is no such thing as a dreadful price for the “pearl” in question. Suffering for him is actually something we rejoice to be counted worthy of (Acts 5:41; Phil. 1:29). The point is simply that unless we clearly see the superiority of what we receive as his students over every other thing that might be valued, we cannot succeed in our discipleship to him. We will not be able to do the things required to learn his lessons and move ever deeper into a life that is his kingdom.

Of course, if we are holding on to our dear lives, we won’t want to give anything out of joy.  But what if we loosen our grip and start to see how God works in every nook and cranny of our lives.  Not just when it comes to religious matters, but in our work, our play and our relationships.  As Willard notes, this passage is really about clarity.  It’s that experience of dizzyness we get when we wear a new pair of glasses.  Everything looks the same, but everything is different now.

Jesus does want it all.  But I don’t think this is about some kind lenten abstinence writ large.  No, it’s more like having second sight and seeing things in a different way.  It’s learning how even the most mundane aspects of life are given over to God.

None of this is to say that there aren’t times when we do have to make a clean break.  But more often than not, it’s understanding that this is God’s world and we are God’s servants, ready to see what God would have us to in God’s world.

Jesus isn’t looking for a part-time Christian, but full-time disciples.

And the benefits aren’t that bad.

 

Go and be church.

Come Sunday: The Breakfast Club (September 1, 2013)

Fifteenth Sunday of Pentecost (Year C)

September 1, 2013

Luke 14:1-14

“The next time you put on a dinner, don’t just invite your friends and family and rich neighbors, the kind of people who will return the favor. Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits from the wrong side of the tracks. You’ll be—and experience—a blessing. They won’t be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned—oh, how it will be returned!—at the resurrection of God’s people.”

-Luke 14:12-14 (The Message)

I was never one of the popular kids.

Oh, I had friends in high school.  But I wasn’t the guy that went to all the parties.  I tended to keep to myself.

High school is one of those places where there really is a clear demarcation: popular folks here, jocks over there, the smart ones all around you.  Then there were those , like me, who really didn’t fit in any of those groups.

The gospel text for this Sunday has me thinking about high school cliques and tables.  Jesus tells two stories that revolve around the meal table.  The first one tells people to not take the seat of highest honor, but instead take the lowest seat as possible.  The second one tells people to invite the poor, the unpopular, the kind of folk that will be able to pay you back.

Jesus tells these stories as both a commentary on first century society and also as an introduction into the kingdom of God.  In God’s eyes, what matters is not wealth or pride, but humility and compassion.  The system of hierarchy has been overthrown.  Equality rules.

As I read this text, two things came to mind.  The first is that I am writing this on August 27, 2013.  Tomorrow, August 28 is the fifthtieth anniversary of the March on Washington.  The most important part of that day was the speech by Rev. Martin Luther King that is now called the “I Have a Dream” speech.  The speech talks about the system of racial heirarchy found in the American South.  King calls for its destruction, to be replaced with a new system of equality, or as King says:

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

King takes Jesus’ words to heart and envisions a society where the descendants of masters and slaves would sit down at a table where all are equal.
The second though is the 1985 classic, The Breakfast Club.  The movie, directed by John Hughes, is set in the Chicago suburbs where an assortment of high school kids spend a Saturday in detention.  These teens had nothing in common and they were from the various parts of high school society.  While they come into the library that morning divided by their respective cliques, they leave understanding each other.  What was a hierarchy, becomes an odd little community.
Jesus seems to tell us that the Kingdom of God is not just for the beautiful people.  It is really for everyone.  In God’s economy, the CEO in the pews is equal with the guy who just got out of the hospital after another bout of schizophrenia.

Come Sunday: The Church on the Edge of Forever (August 18, 2013)

Thirteen Sunday of Pentecost (Year C)

August 18, 2013

Hebrews 11:29-12:2

city on the edge of foreverOne of the best episodes of the TV series “Star Trek” is one called “The City On the Edge of Forever.”  Dr. McCoy gets an accidental overdose of drug that makes him mad.  He beams down to a planet with Kirk and Spock right behind him.  They arrive on the planet and stand in front of what seems like the largest TV I’ve ever seen.  McCoy, still in his drugged state, leaps into what is called the Guardian of Forever.  The minute he goes in, the landing party loses contact with the Enterprise.  We find out that McCoy has somehow changed history, causing the Enterprise to not exist.  Spock and Kirk enter the portal and find themselves in Depression-era America.  The two meet a young woman who works at a soup kitchen.  She is a peace activist that was supposed to die in a car accident.  However, McCoy saves her from getting hit by a car.  His one action caused a series of other actions that lead to the timeline radically changing.  Edith is able to lead a nationwide peace movement that keeps the United States out of World War II.  This allowed Nazi Germany to develop the atomic bomb and win the war.  To make a long story short, Kirk stops McCoy from saving Edith from the oncoming car.  Edith dies and the timeline is restored, but at a terrible cost.

In last week’s blog post, I talked about how faith is about doing something for God without knowing how the story ends.  This week’s passage in Hebrews has me thinking about how our actions have implications far beyond our own time.  The passage talks about how so many folks acted on faith and didn’t face happy endings.  They were faced with a choice and in faith decided to follow one road.  Because Abraham believed, a nation was born.  Because the Israelite believed, they could cross the Red Sea on dry land.  Choices were made that shaped our future.

What comes to mind for this coming Sunday is about how so many churches and religious agencies are facing tight budgets.  Many churches struggle to make ends meet.  Others end up closing.  It’s easy to look at our sanctuaries, which were once empty and are now barely occupied and wonder if God can work with our faith community.

The answer is yes.  The writer of Hebrews talks about a number of unnamed people who also heard the call of God and chose to step out in faith.  But as they say, there is always a downside:

I could go on and on, but I’ve run out of time. There are so many more—Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets. . . . Through acts of faith, they toppled kingdoms, made justice work, took the promises for themselves. They were protected from lions, fires, and sword thrusts, turned disadvantage to advantage, won battles, routed alien armies. Women received their loved ones back from the dead. There were those who, under torture, refused to give in and go free, preferring something better: resurrection. Others braved abuse and whips, and, yes, chains and dungeons. We have stories of those who were stoned, sawed in two, murdered in cold blood; stories of vagrants wandering the earth in animal skins, homeless, friendless, powerless—the world didn’t deserve them!—making their way as best they could on the cruel edges of the world.

39-40 Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.
Hebrews 11:32-40 (The Message)

The night before his assasination, Martin Luther King gave his “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” speech.  It’s an eerie forshadowing of what he was going to face hours later, but it also sums up what it means to have faith in God and our part in ushering in God’s kingdom.We all have a part to play, but we won’t always get to see the end of the story.  Here’s what he says towards the end of that speech:

And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers? … Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t really matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live – a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

King saw that he was part of something bigger than himself.  He knew that he was doing God’s work and he had the eyes of faith to see what the completed work would look like.

As followers of Jesus, we need to remind ourselves that our actions matter.  We might not see the ending, but we can know that we part of the great cloud of witnesses that will have an effect on people generations from now.

Go and be church.

I preached a sermon in 2010 based on the Hebrews text.  You can read it here.

Come Sunday: “I’ll Be Around” (August 11, 2013)

Twelfth Sunday of Pentecost (Year C)

August 11, 2013

Genesis 15:1-18

Whenever you call me,

I’ll be there Whenever you want me,

I’ll be there Whenever you need me,

I’ll be there I’ll be around

–I’ll Be Around, the Spinners

notre dame montreal
Notre Dame Cathedral in Montreal, Quebec. July 2012.

I’ve had the pleasure of being inside some of the great cathedrals of Europe.  I’ve been too Norte Dame, Sacre Coeur and Chartres in France; Westminster, St. Paul’s and Canterbury in the UK.  These buildings are wonderfully ornate and awe-inducing.  What has always fascinated me is that most of these cathedrals took decades and even centuries to build.  Some guy from Paris who was laying bricks at Notre Dame was probably never going to see his work completed.  And yet, people still kept working, day in and day out to complete their task for future generations.

I am reminded of this today when I read our text from Genesis.  Abraham is not a happy soul.  He heard the call from God to leave his homeland and come all this way to lay roots in strange land.  All the while, God is telling him that he will be the father of a nation.

What gets a little odd is that God starts talking about a time when Abraham’s ancestors would be enslaved by a foreign power, a foreshadowing of what would happen to the Israelites under Pharaoh as told in Exodus.  Abe takes this all in and believes.

It had to cross Abraham’s mind that he would never live to see all of this.  He was giving up a lot, his whole life, for something that he would never see.  And yet, he moves forward in faith.

We live in age where we want to be noticed.  We also want to be our fame to happen RIGHT NOW. We tend to be a people that live in the now, with nary a thought about the generations that will come after us.

But history does march on, with or without us.

i'll be aroundWhat would happen if we believe in God in such a way that we were able to live and work not just for us, but for those women and men who have not been born yet?  What would our churches  look like?  What about our communities?  Honest Abe has his doubts and that’s okay.  We all have doubts that God will do what God will do. Abraham would falter later, but he would still keep plugging away trying to be faithful to God.  He was faithful to a God that was faithful to him-even when it didn’t seem like it.

The lyrics at the beginning of this post is from the R&B group, the Spinners.  “I’ll be around” was the first of a string of top ten hits for the Detroit-based group in the early and mid-70s.  This 1972 song was about man who would always be waiting for his love who has left him.

This song wasn’t written about God, but it does remind me that even when God seems far away, God is present, God is with us, telling us that God will always be around.

Go and be church.