Rev. Amy Morgan
February 5, 2017 Listen Print Version Ezekiel 34:1-16, Luke 5:27-32 Do any of you have a favorite children’s book? One that you’ve read over and over again, to your children or grandchildren? Or maybe you have one that you read as a child so many times you’ve memorized it. There was a time when the youth group read Moo, Baa, Lalala so many times to my son over the course of a weekend that I think we all have it permanently imprinted on our brains. Some of these books have a message that, for whatever reason, spoke to us – as children or adults. Something that resonated with how we experience the world. And we needed to hear it again and again. Maybe it even took on different or deeper meaning at various points in our lives. Well, preaching is kind of like that. I’ve been preaching here at First Presbyterian for ten years now, and after looking back on all those sermons this week, I discovered that I’ve been basically preaching the same thing over and over. Month after month, year after year, sermon after sermon, I’ve been preaching about the sovereignty of God, the brokenness of humanity, and the gracious invitation to join in God’s work of reconciling the world through Jesus Christ. That’s it. Same sermon. Ten years. Through three presidential administrations, through economic recession and recovery, through tragedies on a global, national, and personal scale, through relationships and trust built up over years or in short, intense experiences, I have preached the same sermon to you all. You might be tired of it by now. But it’s the sermon that I need to hear. Again and again. And it takes on new and deeper meaning at various points in my life. So I’m going to preach this sermon once more, at least. Listening to today’s scripture passages, we might be tempted to think this is “Law and Order: Ripped From the Headlines” kind of stuff. I’m sorry, but when I read about those terrible shepherds, growing fat by devouring the lost, weak sheep, I went straight to my daily newsfeed and found all kinds of sermon material there. Scores of public figures emerged for me when I read about those self-righteous scribes and Pharisees judging Jesus for including everybody and healing those most in need. But before I could start railing against those shepherds and Pharisees in our society, I had to hear God’s word to me. You see, you may think that preachers are preaching to their congregations. But any preacher worth their salt will tell you they are preaching to themselves first. We are telling the story we need to hear over and over again. And we hope it does you some good, too. So those shepherds, those scribes and Pharisees – who are they? Well, Ezekiel is addressing the leaders of Israel, which, being a theocratic society, necessarily meant the religious leaders of Israel. And you pair that with this little Jesus story where the religious leaders think Jesus shouldn’t be hanging out with the riff-raff, and there’s nowhere to point the finger except right here. As a shepherd of God’s people, I’m supposed to make sure you are healthy and well-fed and safe. And I wish I could look back over the last ten years, or look out at you all right now, and say I’ve done a bang-up job. But I know that many of you are soul-sick; many of you are starving for meaning and purpose and love and hope; many of you are lost and fearful and under attack. I know this. I talk to you. I hear you. I know you. This may sound like I’m just beating up on myself, because pastors are really good at that. But I am perfectly comfortable identifying with the neglectful shepherds in Ezekiel. I am happy to own up to what I’ve done and what I’ve left undone over the last ten years. Because God makes this awesome promise. God promises to come and care for the sheep – to seek them out and rescue them and feed them. And God promises to destroy the fat and the strong and to feed them with justice. This is a hopeful promise for me. God will do what I cannot, and God will destroy what is self-serving and self-righteous about me and feed me with justice. That is good news. God is sovereign. We are broken. But we are graciously invited to join in God’s work of reconciling the world through Jesus Christ. So I’ve claimed my place in this story, I’m a shepherd who needs God to step in and take over. But we’re Presbyterian, friends. And what that means is that every single person who has been claimed by God in baptism has also been called by God to be a shepherd to all the sheep of the world. I may be a shepherd of this flock here at First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham, but you all – we all – are shepherds of our households, our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our communities, our cities, our state, our nation, and our world. And if you think it’s tough being a pastor, being a shepherd to the faithful who come here week after week to hear the Word of God and pray and work and be in community – ooh – try being a shepherd beyond these walls. That’s your job. Mine, too. And that ain’t easy. And I don’t know that we’ve done a great job. Do our families, our neighbors, our colleagues suffer from soul-sickness? Are they starved for good news? In my experience, our children somehow think it is more important to us that they get a scholarship to a top-ranked school than whether or not they are committed to love and justice and peace. They’re no fools. We aren’t sending mixed messages when we pressure them to bring up their math grade but don’t apply the same force around sitting with kids who are outcast at lunch. Our messages to them are loud and clear. They know what we shepherds want from them. Does that make us bad shepherds? Does it make us good parents? Our neighborhoods are filled with stray sheep, prey for the wolves of loneliness and fear. If I don’t know my neighbor, I don’t feel responsible for them. They can wander off, and I wouldn’t even notice. They can be devoured by depression, abuse, illness, or any number of invisible struggles, and all that matters to me is that their house sells for more money and improves my property value. God forbid we should talk about religion in our workplaces, but I’m going to bet we’ve all discussed politics in the last few years. Wouldn’t religion be the more agreeable of those two taboo topics these days? But the life of the shepherd is easier if we don’t have to share the thing that nourishes us. We save it for ourselves. If we tell others about it, it costs us something. There is a price we’re not willing to pay to stand up for our faith and its values in the “secular” world. Does that make us bad shepherds? Does it make us good citizens? And I wish I could tell you which politician or policy at any level of government, from the city of Birmingham to the UN, was going to represent the values of the kingdom of heaven. I’ve got my hunches and opinions, of course. But even I am old enough to know that history has a way of playing out and judging our actions that not even the wisest of us can foresee. And I know that we would rather point to a politician or a political party and accuse them of being bad shepherds than shoulder that identity ourselves. If our cities, our state, our nation, and our world do not experience the good news that God is sovereign, that humanity is broken, and that we are graciously invited to join in God’s work of reconciling the world in Jesus Christ – we are the bad shepherds. That is OUR work. Our work is to trust God to be God, and not claim that power for ourselves. Our work is to acknowledge the brokenness we see within ourselves and to see the suffering of others. Our work is to see where God is active in the world and jump in and get our hands dirty. Instead, we look at one another, at one another in this very room, and say, “how can you call yourself a Christian and…” There’s no way Jesus should be hanging out with him. Or her. Or them. They are tax collectors. And sinners. Isn’t it good news that Jesus is eating with them? Isn’t it good news that Jesus is always eating with the people we judge to be unrighteous and unworthy? We read this story in Luke and think that Jesus is saying that the tax collectors and sinners at the table are the ones who are sick and in need of physician, the sinners in need of repentance. But what if his comment is really an invitation to the scribes and the Pharisees to sit down and join the meal, to admit their own sin and seek out healing for their soul-sickness? What if the righteous ones are those who invited him to dinner and came out to eat with him? We have failed as shepherds, all of us. The sheep have scattered. The wolves are gobbling them up. But we have an invitation. To sit down with Jesus and be fed with justice. To be healed of our soul-sickness by the Great Physician. To let God destroy our self-righteousness. To trust the Good Shepherd to take care of the sheep in ways that we have not. It’s good news. God is sovereign. Humanity is broken. We are graciously invited to join in God’s work of reconciling the world through Jesus Christ. Our opinions will vary about what that looks like. Do you acknowledge God as Lord of your Sunday morning or Lord of your investment accounts? Do you see the brokenness of humanity in the global refugee crisis or in the hopelessness and despair that opens the door to radicalization of a religion? Do you see God’s work in the world, and commit to joining it, in small acts of kindness, in marches and rallies, or in waiting and hoping? You may be surprised to hear this, but I say yes to all of it. That is why I am so privileged to serve as a pastor, a shepherd, at Everybody’s Church. There have been many times in the last ten years when I have not been certain if we could hold the tension, hold the space, that allows me to preach the same sermon and let it be heard in different ways. No time more so than now, I think. So I’m asking you all, as a gift to me, if you have any honor or respect for the work I’ve done here over the last ten years, to hear this sermon one more time today. To hear it with your own ears, your own worldview, your own politics and opinions. To know that it is a message for you, and for the person next to you, and the person on the other side of the aisle. That it is a message for your family, and your neighborhood, and our cities, our state, our nation, and our world. Turn to your neighbor, right now, and tell them, “God is sovereign.” Turn to another neighbor and tell them, “Humanity is broken.” Church, we are graciously invited to join in God’s work of reconciling the world in Jesus Christ. That means that, with the help of God, we can be better shepherds. We can look out for one another. We can feed one another. Turn back to your neighbor and tell them, “With God’s help, I will be your shepherd.” Starting here and starting now, we can be better shepherds. To one another. And to our families. And our towns, and state and nation and world. In every action, every commitment, every vote, every conversation, we can be better shepherds. We can start by coming together and eating at this table, where Jesus Christ is the host. Here, the hungry sheep will find good pasture, and the fat shepherds will be fed with justice. Here, the tax collectors and sinners find a welcome, and the scribes and Pharisees hear the invitation to sit down and repent. Here, we will be told the same story Christians have been telling for thousands of years. May we find in it a new and deeper meaning today. May it draw us together as one flock under the care of the Good Shepherd. May it heal our brokenness. And may we be fed with justice. Amen. Rev. Dr. John Judson
January 29, 2017 Print Version Listen Jeremiah 31:31-34, Mark 4:26-32 The clock was ticking. The hundred days had begun. Everyone was watching. Everyone was expectant. Millions were hopeful. Millions were angry that he had been elected. The problems were great. The solutions not obvious. He had to do something and do it soon. The pressure was on and he knew it. The question was, was Franklin Delano Roosevelt up to it? Could he bring the United States out of what was becoming the greatest depression the world had ever known? Oh, wait, you thought I was talking about President Trump? Well, not exactly, though I suppose I was, along with every other president of the modern era. They have all taken office faced with grave issues of war, unemployment and recession among them. The people have elected them believing that they could fix it; they could make the world better. And the newly elected presidents had to prove they were doing it…in their first hundred days. The pressure was on to do something; to bring about a better world. In some ways this was the pressure that was on Jesus. As he was beginning his ministry he understood what the people were looking for. They were looking for the one who could do it; who could bring about the Kingdom of God, preferably in a hundred days. They were looking for the one with the right slogans and programs; the one with the power to make it happen to bring about God’s amazing kingdom in which the Jewish people were free to live and worship, in which they once again actually had dominion over their enemies; in which everyone had enough; in which there was peace and prosperity. The pressure was on. Yet in a sense it did not seem to impact Jesus in the least. In fact, when he talked about the Kingdom of God, the images he offered were never images of waiting, rather than of action; of inactivity, rather than harried hurrying. The Kingdom of God is like seed that is planted and it grows in its own time and way. No one can hurry it. The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed that grows, slowly into a bush that welcomes all sorts of creatures. This was not what the people wanted. They wanted action. They wanted results. The pressure was on. What is fascinating to me about all of this is that the pressure faded; at least it faded in the church. At the birth of the church there was a real sense of urgency to build this amazing Kingdom. The earliest Christians lived in communities in which all was held in common. In which all people had enough. In which all people were taken care of. The earliest Christians also invited others into this community, believing that in so doing they were helping people prepare for the coming kingdom. Yet over time, when the Kingdom didn’t get there; when the kingdom didn’t get here, people went back to Jesus’ teachings and realized that he had taken this long term view. He had seen the Kingdom coming as a future event, and not necessarily one in the present. So the church put the Kingdom on the back burner. They realized that they could not build it, that only God could build it, so why try. The church offered glimpses of the Kingdom in its architecture, great soaring cathedrals; it offered it in its liturgy, music, incense. But the real Kingdom, that was God’s business. That was God’s work. When God was ready the kingdom would come. This same attitude is prevalent today. I recently watched a video in which a well-known pastor said that the only thing Christians were supposed to do was to tell people about Jesus. That we could not bring about the Kingdom so we were not to try. I have to say, in one respect I agree with him. I know this comes as a shock to many of you. The one respect is that we cannot create the Kingdom. We cannot change people’s hearts to make them more loving and compassionate. We cannot create perfect economic systems in which everyone has enough. We cannot bring about peace between nations who have conflicting interests and needs. We cannot make fundamentalist Christians, Jews, Muslims and Hindus feel good about members of their faiths who do not believe the same way. In that sense then the pressure is off. It is off because ultimately only God can build the Kingdom. And if we listen to Jesus, God is doing this, but God is taking the long term view. The Kingdom is growing, we know not how, and one day it will arrive and be this amazing tree in which all of God’s creatures come together as one. The Kingdom will be a home for all. That’s where I agree. However, there is a place where I disagree. The place where I disagree is that we should not do anything other than tell people about Jesus. Now let me be clear, should we tell people about Jesus? Absolutely. We are to tell them about the infinite love of Jesus that enfolds, sustains and empowers life. We are to tell them about the open arms that welcome all into Christ’s community of love and grace. Yes, we are to tell. Yet, we are also supposed to be Kingdom people. We are to be people of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness and compassion. We are to be people who share our resources with others. We are to be people who run our businesses with the highest ethical standards. We are to be people who treat others as we long to be treated. We are to be those who stand against injustice and oppression. We are to be the voice of the voiceless. In other words, we are to be those bright spots out in the world; those examples of what the coming Kingdom will look like. And we are to do this not merely because we should, or we ought, but because this is the essence of who we are. This is who we are as followers of Jesus Christ. We are those who have had God’s law of love that Jeremiah was talking about, written onto our hearts. We are those who have been hard-wired to be Kingdom people. A few minutes ago I said that the church tried to demonstrate what the Kingdom of God looked like through its architecture and its liturgy. This morning I want us to realize that we are to be the cathedrals and liturgy through which others see the Kingdom coming. We are to be those who are the light and love of God in the world. We are to be beacons of the Kingdom shining into a hurting world. In and through us, people are to see what the Kingdom looks like. . This morning as we hold our annual meeting, I want to say how proud I am to be your pastor; proud because when I look out at you I see the light shining. I see in what you do, in what we do, glimpses of the Kingdom coming. And even though we cannot create it, it is here; it is here in all that we have and are doing. My challenge to you this morning is this, to ask yourselves how am I being a light to the world, so that those around me can see the Kingdom coming in who I am and in what I do. Rev. Dr. John Judson
January 22, 2017 Listen Print Version Luke 4:1-8, Mark 1:21-28 I am afraid that it is time. It is time that we had “that” talk. The talk that your parents were afraid to have with you. The talk that some Presbyterians have in hushed tones, trying not to be over heard. It’s time to have the demon talk. Yes, that’s right. It is time to talk about demons. In some ways this should not have to be a difficult talk because demons are all over the Bible, and especially in the stories about Jesus. And they are in the stories about Jesus because the First-century world believed that demons were everywhere. The demons, according to Jewish belief, were descendants of a wayward angel, who had begotten children with human women. And they were a big family. There were approximately seven and half million demons. Each person had ten-thousand at each hand, right and left. They lived in tombs and unclean places. They lived in the desert and howled. They were around at times of danger such as child birth and at times of joy, such as weddings. There were demons of leprosy, blindness and heart disease. In other words, as I said a moment ago, they were numerous and they were everywhere. Even so, I would imagine, you are saying to yourself, what does this have to do with me. I live in the 21st century and don’t believe in demons. So why have the talk? The answer, I hope, will become clear as we move ahead, but first we have to take a closer look at the demonic to understand. The role of demons was to inflict harm on human beings. They were, if you will, bent on distracting and diminishing. Demons were intent on distracting people from their true purpose of loving God and neighbor. They distracted people with the temptation of loving only self. Demons worked to diminish the humanity of individuals. They work to slowly erode the image of God in people so that people became less than God made them to be. In a sense they worked against the world God intended; a world in which every human being lived fully, using their gifts to serve creation all the while loving God and others. We can see this in both of our stories this morning. In the first story, Satan tries to distract Jesus from being who God created him to be; the savior of the world. Satan does this by tempting Jesus to focus on himself; his physical needs, his desire to be king of the world, rather than focusing on the mission he had been given. In the second story we see the effects of the demonic in that the man who confronts Jesus is out of control and afraid of God; so afraid that he cannot be the person God has created him to be. This is what the demonic does; it distracts and diminishes so that human beings cannot be those God created them to be. So, once again, what does this have to do with us? The answer can be found all around us. We are surrounded by the demonic. We are surrounded by those invisible forces which seek to distract us from our mission to love the world as Christ loved the world. We are surrounded by those invisible forces that seek to diminish our humanity and the humanity of others but having us see ourselves and others as less than human. We are surrounded by hate, anger, violence, fear, racism, greed, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia…and the list could go on and on. These are the invisible forces which seek to do harm to God’s beloved; to individuals, communities and to the world. I say these are demonic, not because they are brought about by little, invisible cartoon demons. I say they are demonic because they do what the demonic does. They come in through the back doors of our lives and distract us and diminish us. They cause us to be less than fully human and they cause us to see others as less than fully human. They do harm to our relationship with both God and neighbor. To make my point, and I am not looking for hands in the air, how many of us have unfairly looked down upon and judged another? How many of us, have created negative stereotypes about people who are different from ourselves? How many of us have become so angry about something that we are out of control? How many of us have allowed fear to control us? See, we don’t need demons to see that the demonic is at work within us and within the world. This reality then leads us to one more question, how do I defeat these invisible powers that seek to distort the person God has created me to be? The answer to this question, simply put, is that we are to do what Jesus did, we are to do the miraculous. Jesus, when confronted by the demonic, performs the miracles of resistance and restoration. He performs the miracle of resistance, resistance to the temptations that are before him, by remembering what a right relationship with God looks like. Jesus remembers that life is not about self, but about God. It is not about self, but about others. It is not about power but service. This is the miracle of resistance. In the second story he performs the miracle of restoration. The man approaches him, filled with fear. “Have you come to destroy us?” he asks. Jesus response is to drive out the fear and replace it with Shalom; with the fullness of what it means to be a child of God. In some ways this sums up all of Jesus’ miracles; resistance and restoration, leading people to become fully human and fully alive. The gift of God is that we can perform these same miracles. That’s right, we can do the miraculous. We can perform the miracle of resistance. We can perform this miracle in the same way Jesus did, by remembering who and whose we are. We can perform this by reminding ourselves that life is not about self, but about God; not about what I want but what others need; not about power but about service. What happens when we do this is that we shut that back door through which the life distorting powers sneak in and take hold of us. And instead we open the front door through which the love and grace of God comes in and reshapes us. We can perform the miracle of restoration. We can perform it by responding to hate with love; to anger with consolation; to fear with hope; to racism, homophobia, Islamophobia and xenophobia with a demonstration of inclusion and welcome. And by so doing we will open the possibility of the transforming love and grace of God to work in the lives of others. Friday evening, after having watched the inauguration, I decided to go on Facebook. There was a video of a man being beset by a bunch of cute puppies, thank yous from people who had been asking for prayers and lots of ads. But then there was a photo of empty bleachers along the parade route for our new president. Below the picture there was a rather innocuous comment, but below that it said 374 comments. Out of curiosity I looked. What I read were some of the most demeaning and nasty comments I have ever read on Facebook. It was like watching the left and the right lob literary shells at the other side hoping to destroy the other. It was demonic. It was demonic not because they agreed or disagreed about President Trump and his policies. It was not demonic because people wanted to stand up for what they believed. It was demonic because they were distracting and diminishing. They were distracting people from their mission to love God and neighbor. They were trying to diminish the other into a pile of nothing. My friends this is what the demonic has always done. It has taken hold of us and used us to destroy ourselves. Our challenge is to not let it. Our challenge is to do the miraculous; to resist and restore. It is not easy, yet it is our calling. So here is my challenge to you, to ask yourselves, “How I am performing the miracles of resistance and restoration in all of my interactions with those around me?” Rev. Joanne Blair
January 15, 2017 Listen Print Version Isaiah 61:1-4; Luke 4:14-21 Last week John read from the book of Luke about when Jesus was 12 and engaged in conversation in the temple. How he was obedient and grew in wisdom. We now join Jesus when he is 30 years old. Jesus has been baptized, filled with the power of the Spirit, gone off into the wilderness for 40 days, experienced temptation from the devil, and is now back out of the wilderness. Our scripture reading this morning is, in the book of Luke, the beginning of Jesus’s Galilean Ministry. We all love it when someone from our hometown “makes good” and becomes well-known for it. Jesus had been teaching in the surrounding areas and now he’s home. “Hasn’t he grown into a fine young man?!” “Oh, he’s so articulate and confident!” “Doesn’t he look good? That wilderness air has done him well!” “And he’s single, too….” People were excited to hear him speak…at first. Those of you following “We Make the Road by Walking” also know that the reading assignment for this week goes on for several more verses, and Jesus makes it clear that his message is for “outsiders” also. And after he said that, they wanted to throw him off of a cliff. Hopefully you won’t feel that way about me today! Today, we’re going to focus on the front part of this piece … the verses we just read. Imagine the scene: People sitting in their favorite “pew”, chatting before worship. “Oh, Jesus is in town! He’s been teaching in other synagogues. I wonder if he’ll teach today? Oops, better settle down … service is starting.” The service begins with the usual prayers…and a Psalm…and sure enough, Jesus comes forward to read from the scroll. He finds the passage he wants and reads the particular verses from Isaiah that I just read. It was the custom in that time to stand when reading the scripture, and then sit down to teach. And so Jesus sits down and people anxiously await to hear what he will say. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” That’s it. Perhaps the world’s shortest sermon. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (And people say my sermons are short!) Jesus would have flunked any seminary preaching class. His sermon was too short, had no jokes or illustrations, and didn’t go on to explain his point. But Jesus obviously thought it was enough. That’s why he chose this messianic passage from Isaiah. And all these many centuries later, his message is the same: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Only nine words …nine words that changed everything. This Friday, January 20, Donald Trump will become the 45th president of the United States. After taking the oath of office, he will give his “inaugural address”, which is a speech given to inform the people of his intentions as a leader. The scripture and statement we just heard from Jesus, is his agenda. It is an outline of his ministry, a statement of his vision, and the foundation of his mission. This was Jesus’ inaugural address. This is why the writer of Luke places the story much earlier in his gospel than the other writers do. Through 30 years of preparation, Jesus is clear about who he is, and why he is here. Jesus speaks of how society is to be changed - how people need to transform to become a kinder and gentler society. His message was for the people of the day. And his message is for us, today. Earlier we heard Ann/Forrest read from the book of Isaiah. Note that when Jesus read from Isaiah he left out all talk of vengeance - and spoke only of release, recovery, freedom, and good news. Jesus was speaking to everyone that could hear him, and he is speaking to all of us… for we are all captive, broken, and blind in some way. Jesus is claiming all of us to be transformed … and to take part in that transformation. Today. Today. Some of us live in the past. We long for the “simpler days of old” … for “the way things used to be.” Some of us can’t move ahead from circumstances or relationships in the past (both good and bad) … and we get stuck there. Some of us strive to exist in the future. “Someday, things will be better.” or “I’m waiting for X to happen, and then I’ll do Y.” As Michael Marsh says: “With one foot in the past and one in the future we straddle and completely miss the present. We become captive to what was, oppressed by what might be, and blind to what is.” I agree, for while we are shaped by the past, and plan for the future, we live in today. Today. Today is where we meet Jesus. Today, in the present moment, regardless of our personal circumstances. Jesus calls for the restoration of this world. Jesus calls for the transformation of our lives. And Jesus calls for these things now. Today. And if we call ourselves followers of Jesus, then we gladly and gratefully take on this yoke. I used to think of a yoke as a heavy burden. (Even though Jesus says it isn’t.) This pastor’s stole is a yoke. Many people in Jesus day were disappointed in this Messiah. They wanted him for themselves, and they wanted him to charge in on a white horse with trumpets and power. And if we are honest, we are often the same. We want Jesus to “take care of business”, to answer our prayers … to fix things. But Jesus shows us by his life and death and resurrection that he is not just “a fixer” … he is the Way. Jesus calls on each of us to invest ourselves in the Kingdom of God. Today. The Spirit of the Lord is upon us. The Spirit of the Lord is within us. And so we are all called. And no matter how inadequate you and I may feel at times, we are the body of Christ. We are the hands and feet of Christ, and we are each called to ministry. In a world of so much change and turmoil, where natural and man-made disasters seem rampant, where there is so much need, where we sometimes struggle to see God at work … this can seem totally daunting. Where do we begin? Here. Today. Now. How do we do it? With kindness, and compassion. Let every thought and action be directed by the love of God. Each of us has a call and a role to play. Jesus had the power of the Spirit, and we do, too. We are called, because the Spirit is around us, beside us, and within us. Respond to the Spirit in you, and the Spirit in each other. Every breath we take is a sign that we are alive today. Every breath we take is a gift. Every breath we take is a call to action. And the Spirit is there to guide and direct us in that breath. Today, don’t waste a breath. Amen. Rev. Dr. John Judson
January 8, 2017 Listen Print Version 1 Kings 3:1-9; Luke 2:39-52 So what are we supposed to do? What are we supposed to do in less than two weeks when we have a new president inaugurated who has never held office, never passed a bill, and never created policy? What are we supposed to do with our new congress in which the majority party cannot agree within itself what to do about some of the most important issues of our day: trade, immigration and health care among them? What are we supposed to do with a state legislature that continues to try to figure out how to fund infrastructure and education? What do we do when we have new elders being ordained and installed today who are going to be leading the church into a religious world that is rapidly changing and highly unpredictable? What are we supposed to do? The answer? Pray for wisdom…for their wisdom. Wisdom is one of those interesting concepts in scripture that almost defies definition. It is not simply knowledge, though knowledge matters. It is not simply faith, but faith matters. It is not simply intuition, though intuition helps. One part of Wisdom is that ability to discern and implement the new reality that God desires in which all are blessed. It is the ability to cut through all of the warring ideas, concepts, belief systems and party politics and see the right choices that need to be made to enhance the lives of those who are governed. This morning then I want to offer you a prayer in three parts for all of our leaders, that I will encourage you to pray every day…all arising out of the only story we have of Jesus’ childhood. So here we go. Part number one is that our leaders look for wisdom. Our story in Luke picks up with Jesus and his parents headed for Jerusalem. Jesus, who at twelve is now considered an adult, evidently slips away from his parents either heads to, or remains at, the Temple after his parents make their obligatory sacrifices. Why would Jesus do this? He is after all, well, Jesus. I would argue that he does so because he is looking for wisdom. Somehow he already understands that he has been entrusted with a special mission. In order to accomplish this mission he will need wisdom, the ability to cut through religious tradition and worldly temptations to discern God’s future for him; to discern what are the right choices. And the Temple is the place where the great teachers, the great rabbis, shared their wisdom by teaching the next generation of Jewish scholars. These were the people for whom Jesus was looking; from whom he could find wisdom. We need to pray this for our leaders because the temptation of all leaders is to assume that they, in an of themselves, have the right education, insight and intelligence to always make the right decision. Unfortunately, the systems into which they are being engulfed are powerful, and without wisdom, those leaders will simply repeat the words and deeds of those around them, and not necessarily those which lead to God’s new creation. Part number two is that our leaders listen to wisdom. What has always fascinated me about the use of this Jesus story is that people believe that Jesus was there, as a twelve-year-old, teaching the teachers; that the divine Jesus child was in the midst of the scholars, teaching them a thing or two. But if we actually look at the text we see that Jesus is listening and asking questions. Jesus understands that he does not possess all wisdom. He understands that the only way to gain wisdom is to first listen to those who are wiser than he is and then to ask them questions. As an aside, this process of listening, asking and then answering questions from the wise teachers was the Jewish way of transmitting wisdom from one generation to the next. Yes, the scholars and people are amazed at his understanding and his answers to their questions to him, but before that, we have to hold fast to the fact that Jesus knew he did not have all of the answers but was in need of listening to others wiser than himself. We need to pray this for our leaders because they are going to be inundated with all sorts of people all wanting their time, their vote and their support. People and institutions with a single cause will dangle money and support in front of them…oh and elders, sorry this will not happen to you…and they will be tempted to listen to the highest bidder. And our leaders, just like most of us, will tend to listen to those people with whom they already agree, which simply reinforces their particular prejudices and priorities, rather than offering them new possibilities. Our leaders need the ability to listen to, and ask questions of, those who already possess wisdom. Who have a clearer vision of what God’s future for this nation, this state, this church ought to look like. Our leaders need to be those who have walked the road before and learned what does and does not lead to a more decent and caring country. Part number three is that they learn wisdom. As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink, the same is true for wisdom. You can lead a person to wisdom but you cannot make them learn it. Jesus learned it. The final verse of the story is that Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor. Jesus learned wisdom. He learned it so that when he begins his ministry and is tempted in the wilderness, he is able to see through the temptations and choose the right path. He learned it so that he could teach it to his disciples and, through the Gospels, to countless generations. He learned it such that in the cross and not in violence he could see the salvation of the world. Jesus would spend the rest of his life learning wisdom in order to save the world. Our leaders need to learn wisdom because we live in a complex and complicated world; a world in which slogans and simplistic answers will not work; in which there are no silver bullets that will make everything better; in which there are competing claims and voices, all crying to be heard; in which there is injustice, greed and desperate need; but also in which there is much good, compassion and caring needing to be encouraged. In other words, all of our leaders have been asked to do the impossible; to help create a better world, nation, state and church for all. In this reality, only wisdom will do. It is a simple prayer, that all of our leaders look for, listen to and learn wisdom. I have already begun to pray this prayer every day, because we will either rise or fall together, and I would rather we rise together in order to offer a better life and future to all. That then is my challenge, that you pray daily for all leaders, that they look for, listen to and learn wisdom. Rev. Amy Morgan
January 1, 2017 Print Version Psalm 148, Luke 2:25-38 Only 8% of people are successful in achieving their New Year’s Resolutions. Most diets fail within 7 days. Only a small fraction of students who start an online course end up completing it. I’m sure we all have the best of intentions when setting New Year’s resolutions and other goals, but most of us seem to be pretty terrible at sticking with it. Because the problem is, no matter how badly we think we want something - whether it’s to be more organized or learn something new or spend more time with our family - there is massive resistance to change. The law of inertia tells us that objects at rest stay at rest. So the chances of you getting up off the couch and heading to the gym six days a week are not very good. It also says that objects in motion stay in motion. So the chances of you learning to slow down and enjoy more quality time with loved ones are also not very good. Inertia is not the only barrier to change. Changes with any permanence and meaning typically don’t happen overnight. There are plenty of folks capitalizing on this moment of self-reflection, offering rapid body transformation, instant return on investment plans, or products that make organizing quick and easy. But most of us know by now that these changes don’t last. We return to our old habits of eating and slacking, we overspend and mismanage our finances, and our beautifully organized closets quickly return to their natural state of disaster. In the end, we lack the resolve necessary to make meaningful and lasting change. We’re too enamored with the idea of quick and easy change because much about our lives is quick an easy. Who needs to complete an online course when I can Google search anything I’m interested in knowing? Who wants to read the book when you can just see the movie? My dad has an app on his phone that will place his order at Starbucks so that it’s waiting for him to pick up when he gets there. No waiting in line for your cappuccino anymore. We don’t get to practice the characteristic of resolve very often because there not that much need for it in our world. There is very little that we have to wait for these days. But there are still some people who have resolve, who know how to wait. Cubs fans, for instance. 108 years. Or Lions fans. You’re all still waiting. There are others who wait, though. I remember my mom talking about the waiting, many times, for her father to come home from Air Force deployments, sometimes with no idea if the wait would be days or weeks or months or even years. I’ve waited with people in emergency rooms, sitting for hours in pain with unanswered questions, hoping for healing and relief. There are many whose daily commute to work includes many long waits for buses running late, taking hours to get somewhere it would only take a few minutes to drive, if only they had a car, or a more effective public transportation system. There are many who have resolve, who know how to wait. But I’m not sure any of us knows about waiting the way Simeon and Anna did. There was no quick fix to the problems faced by the Jewish people of the first century. They waited on God’s promise of a Messiah, the one who would save Israel from the oppression they’d been experiencing for centuries under a rotating cast of rulers and regimes. Israel had thrown her support behind one empire and another over the years. They’d tried playing nice, they’d tried to adapt and fit in. They’d gone the route of violent resistance. And yet, no matter what they tried, they ended up where they were, at the bottom of the heap, taxed beyond bearing, their religion barely tolerated, their way of life eroding. But there were those who held out hope that the Messiah would come and would be the instantaneous solution to their problems. God had promised that the kingdom would be restored, that one would come from the line of the great king David who would restore Israel. Most Jews, I imagine, pictured a return to the glory days of the unified kingdom of Israel, with military might and land flowing with milk and honey and riches to fill royal coffers. And the Messiah would be the knight in shining armor who would make all of this a reality in no time at all. But the hope expressed by Simeon doesn’t quite match up with this picture. “A light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel” could perhaps elude to showing the Romans who’s boss and elevating the Jews above the rest. But then there is this odd prophetic word of warning: “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.” This doesn’t sound like a unified and mighty kingdom. It sounds like a resistance movement. It doesn’t sound like a quick fix-all. It sounds unsettling. This is the hope Simeon held on to. Hope that the whole system would be overturned, not just the powers-that-be in the Roman empire, but all the powers that have ever been, even the powers-that-be within Israel. Any first-century Jew would have looked forward to the coming Messiah, should have celebrated his arrival. And yet, Simeon says, now that the Messiah has arrived, he will be opposed, not by Rome, but by people within the family of Israel. This is the transformation Simeon had hoped for because this is the kind of change that lasts. Any change expert will tell you that the key to overcoming barriers to change is to upset the system, to reveal the cracks and fissures in the foundation holding everything in place, to undermine long-held assumptions. But that’s only part of the equation. In order to not have everything dissolve into chaos, in order to effect positive, healthy change, you also have to provide a compelling vision of a better future, a goal worth achieving. This is what gives us resolve. And so that is what Jesus came to do. To transform the creation with lasting, meaningful change, change that takes time, change that comes from our assumptions being undermined and the status quo being overturned. While many were looking for a Messiah that would return them to the glory of the past, Jesus promised them a world made new. There were those who celebrated this Messiah, like Simeon and Anna, but there were many who opposed him as well. Many who lost their resolve, or who never had it to begin with. The history of Israel had been so unsettled that, for some, if they could find some measure of stability, inertia would keep them settled there, for better or worse. Others had found a trajectory that worked for them, a way forward within the Roman empire, and inertia insisted they keep moving and not alter their course. But many lost their resolve, not because of inertia, but because they couldn’t wait for the world to be made new. They were fine with following Jesus the Miracle-Worker, Jesus the Righteous Teacher, Jesus the Healer. These were signs that things were changing fast, changing in the here and now. These were quick fixes for the sin that troubled the world. But they lost their resolve in the face of Jesus the Political Prisoner, Jesus the Criminal, Jesus the Sacrifice. They didn’t really want to upset the system, see the cracks and fissures in the foundation, undermine their long-held assumptions. And they failed to see the vision, to believe that though the wait would be long, the world would be remade, heaven would be on earth, love would rule over all. Not many people know how to wait like Simeon and Anna. But that is what we are called to do. More than 2,000 years later, we wait. And as a new year dawns, I wonder how our resolve is holding up. This threshold of a new year is the perfect time to look back to the birth of Christ and forward to his return, to ponder the past and anticipate the future. And to ask ourselves what we’re waiting for. What kind of a Messiah do we hope to see, now and in the future? Is Jesus the one who will give us what we want, make our lives better, make us more powerful? Or is Jesus the one who will upset the whole apple cart? If Jesus is the one who brings lasting, meaningful change, who is remaking the world into the kingdom of God on earth, then we must have the resolve to wait. And, like Simeon and Anna, we must have the wisdom to celebrate signs of its arrival when we encounter them. And we must be ready to face the resistance to change that continues wherever the power of God conflicts with the powers that be. How strong is your resolve? Let us pray: Gracious God, give us the resolve to wait, and hope, and work for the transformation of this world. Help us to look for signs of your kingdom coming into this world and to celebrate. Guide us to live as changed people in a world resistant to change. In Jesus Christ we pray, Amen. Rev. Dr. John Judson
December 18, 2016 Listen Print Version Genesis 12:1-3, Matthew 1:1-17 It is for me a haunting kind of picture. It is black and white, taken sometime around the turn of the last century. In it are multiple children, all dressed in threadbare clothes, loosely gathered around a young woman, hair bedraggled, cooking on an outdoor fire with an old cast-iron skillet. The children are all barefoot and the home, if you can call it that, behind them, is no more than loose boards on a frame. The woman in this picture is my great-grandmother. One of the young boys, my grandfather. The setting is rural Louisiana where that part of my family is from. The background is that my great-grandmother was an itinerant school teacher. She would walk, with her five children, from community to community, seeing if the people had a small house, or shack, some money and a willingness to pay her to teach their children in the local one room school house. Often her pay was no more than enough food to keep her children fed. Then she had to take on her sister and her sisters children as well. But the one question to which I could never get an answer was why was the woman, who was married to a doctor, struggling to put food on the table. My grandfather would not say. All he would ever allow was that there was “a series of unfortunate incidents” that had caused his mother to flee. It is not hard for us to read between the lines and sense that those unfortunate incidents probably included abuse. Somehow this was the messy part of our family’s past that no one wanted to reveal. I wonder if that’s how Mary and Joseph felt when people read this opening part of Matthew; because it shows just how messy their family was. That they would prefer that people just refer to much of it as a series of unfortunate incidents. I realize that for many of us when we listen to this genealogy of Jesus all we hear is the Charlie Brown, wah wah, wah, wah; names, names, names, names. But what we should be hearing is just how messy and scandalous Jesus’ background really is. First we have Tamar, who when her husband dies, dresses as a prostitute and sleeps with her father-in-law so she can have the child she deserves. Next we have Rahab, who was a prostitute who protects two spies in exchange for her life. Then we have Ruth, who was a foreigner who offers herself to an older man on the advice of her mother-in-law. Then we have Manasseh who was probably the worst king in all of the history of Judah. He worshipped other gods and put their statues in the Temple. And he killed anyone who opposed him. This is one messy family. It certainly does not seem like a fitting family for Jesus of Nazareth, the one true messiah. But there it is. Almost as good as having to choose death or Texas. What is interesting about this messy family story is that the church tried to fix it so that it was not a story often retold in all its messiness. The church tried to fix it with Mary and then with Joseph. It tried to fix it with Mary by essentially lifting her out of any connection with all those people…and by lifting her out then Jesus would also be lifted out. The church did this by adopting two doctrines. The first was that of the Immaculate Conception, not to be confused, football fans, with the immaculate reception. The Immaculate Conception is the doctrine that when Mary the mother of Jesus was conceived, the Holy Spirit protected her from the stain of the original sin. Thus she was born pure and holy. The second doctrine was that of eternal virginity, which declared that she was a virgin at conception, birth, and forever. The only problem with both of these once again is the Biblical story itself. Mary, while being an amazing young woman, was still just that, an amazing young woman, living with a messy family. She and Joseph would go on to have other children and she would not completely understand Jesus’ mission. Even going so far as to once try to corral him and bring him back home. The church tried to remove Joseph from the messiness by having him declared to be a saint. Though he is not credited with any miracles, he is spoken of as the protector of the redeemer, as the one who protected Mary from condemnation because she was pregnant and unwed. He is also seen as the one through whom Jesus’ Davidic lineage comes. In addition, we might assume he was a very patient husband since Mary was an eternal virgin. Yet even with all of that, he is the one who carries the lineage of Abraham who twice gave away his wife to protect himself; of King David who broke half of the Ten Commandments including adultery, stealing, murder, coveting and lying; and King Solomon who worshipped other gods and essentially set the kingdom on the road to ruin. In a sense then there is no escaping the messy family from which either Mary or Joseph come from. So what then? What are we to do with these messy stories? The answer I would offer is this. We are to see this messy family story as the story God always intended to tell. For you see, God always planned that the salvation of the world would come through a messy family and not from a perfect pair of partners. Let me explain. When we read the Genesis text from this morning, we hear Abraham being promised (and all of you who have been in the Two Year Bible Trek class can say this with me) land, seed and blessing if he is faithful. He was promised a place, progeny, and prosperity. But more importantly for our purposes he was told that all of the nations would be blessed through him and through his family. In other words, Abraham was never promised that everything would be perfect, or that he would be perfect. Instead he was promised that if he were faithful to God, things would go well for him and for the world. His was to be the messy human family through which the redeemer of the world would arrive. And this is the story that is told in genealogy at the beginning of Matthew. That God had fulfilled God’s promise to save the world through the very messiness of Abraham’s family. That, in a sense, regardless of how messy things got, God was still faithful and God’s plan was still at work. My hope this morning is that this concept that God saves the world through a messy family will come as good news to you. I hope it is good news for two reasons. First, it is that God can still be at work in our very messy world; that God does not require practically perfect people to make this world look more and more like God’s kingdom. Second, I hope it comes as good news because it says that God can use you and me, even when we and our families are messy. And this is important because we are those who have been called to bless the world, because we are part of the messy family of Abraham. By committing ourselves to following Jesus we are adopted into Abraham’s family; adopted in so that we can be blessed and that we can be a blessing to the world. So that we can continue to make a positive difference for men and women both here and around the world. My challenge to you this morning then is this, to ask yourselves, how am I blessing the world? How in all the messiness of life and family, am I being a blessing to those near and far? Rev. Dr. John Judson
December 11, 2016 Listen Print Version Micah 5:2-5a, Matthew 2:1-18 I want to begin this morning with some tweets. “Our house and are fall to the army. We are trapped under bombs that didn’t stop last night.” “Hello friends, how are you. I am fine. I am getting better without medicine with too much bombing.” “I miss you. Under attack. Nowhere to go, every minute feels like death. Pray for us. Goodbye.” These are tweets from Bana Alabed, a seven-year-old girl trapped with her family in Eastern Aleppo. People have been following her tweets which not only record her daily struggle but show pictures of the horrific damage in her neighborhood. In some ways she is one of the few people inside Aleppo who has managed to personalize the tragedy of that years-old conflict that has killed more than 600,000 men, women and children. I don’t offer you these tweets this morning in an attempt to spoil your pre-Christmas celebrations, but I offer them as a reminder that these would have been the tweets coming out of Bethlehem. “Herod’s forces on their way. No place to hide.” “Infants and young children singled out. Parents weeping.” “Bethlehem will never be the same. Pray for us.” There are some things in this world that never change…and leaders like Assad and Herod, leaders who will do anything, kill anyone, to maintain power are one of those never changing things. For those of you unfamiliar with Herod, he was the client king of Judea when Jesus was born. He was a client of Rome, who had installed him in power and given him almost unlimited freedom to kill anyone whom he thought threatened him. He killed his own people when they protested. He killed his wife and two of his sons whom he thought might be trying to unseat him. And so in our story this morning, his seeking to destroy the Christ-child, was completely in character for him, even though from the outside, this claim of a savior-king being born in Bethlehem, appeared to be bit of false news. It would have seemed that way because Bethlehem was a tiny, one-blinking-light kind of town. Nothing much to it. Yet Herod could take no chances. He had to kill the children. This event raises for me one key question, which is, why did Jesus do it? Why did Jesus engage in this risky business of entering into the world as a vulnerable infant, risking all of God’s work in the world? I realize that this language of Jesus choosing to come into the world may seem a bit odd. Normally we think of God sending the son. Yet the Apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Philippi, tells us that Jesus did not count the power of his divinity as something to be greedily grasped and held on to, but instead Jesus willingly gave it up and became one of us. In other words, Jesus could have decided that the risks weren’t worth it. That it was too great a risk to be born as a child, in a small rural town, at a time when someone like Herod would probably seek him out in an effort to destroy him. And yet he didn’t. This is what Jesus chose. So why? The answer I want to offer you this morning is this. That Jesus engaged in the risky business of coming into the world as a vulnerable child in order to engage in the risky business of loving the world such that one day God’s peace might be made real. Let me explain. This book (the Bible) offers us God’s plan for the world. And God’s plan for the world was for peace; not merely a lack of war, but true peace. The kind of peace that brings about the Star Trek world we talked about last week. That world in which everyone has enough. In which there is no fear, racism, sexism or homophobia. That world in which every child can reach old age. This was and is the kind of world that the scriptures offer to us as God’s end game. We see this in the passage from the prophet Micah, where he echoes the words of almost every other prophet. “And he (the messiah) shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace.” Can you sense the peacefulness and abundance that this passage offers? It lets us breathe deeply. Yet what I want to offer to you is that this kind of peace can never be created by power alone; the kind of power wielded by Assad and Herod. I say that because we live in the nation with the greatest economy the world has ever seen; with the greatest military the world has ever seen. And yet we are afraid. We have no peace. The only thing that can bring this peace is love. For you see that if Jesus came into the world like Robo-Cop, or Robo-Messiah, dressed for war to defeat the enemies of God’s people, nothing would have changed, except those in charge. Instead Jesus understood that love was the great healer. For it is in love that barriers are broken down. It is in love that forgiveness is found. It is in love that people share their lives with one another. It is in love that many become one. It is in love that peace is found. And this kind of love, that heals, forgives, reconciles and connects is vulnerable love. For that my friends, is what true love is. True love is always vulnerable because it opens itself to the other. It opens itself to being hurt. It opens itself to loss. It opens itself to pain. But only in being open and vulnerable can love be healing and transforming. And it is this kind of vulnerable love that Jesus offered to the world. It was the kind of love that risked Herod’s wrath. It was the kind of love that risked being rejected by hometown friends. It was the kind of love that risked being betrayed by his closest friends. It was the kind of love that risked being arrested, tried and crucified. This was the risky business in which Jesus chose to engage; the risky business of coming into the world as a vulnerable child two thousands years ago. And my friends, this is the same risky business in which Jesus still engages. He still loves us. He loves our children that we baptized this morning. He loves us regardless of who we are and how we act. He risks us forgetting about him and ignoring him. Yet he still loves. He still offers his love to us and to the world, that we might become people who find peace and build peace. My challenge then for you for this week is this, to ask yourselves, how am I engaging in the risky business of loving others, in such a way that I am creating peace in all that I say and do? Rev. Dr. John Judson
December 4, 2016 Listen Print Version Isaiah 9:1-7, Luke 1:26-38 It seemed like it would never arrive. Every day I would rush home from school and look at the pile of mail to see if it had come. And day after day it never arrived, until, as if by some miracle, there it was; the Sears’ Wish Book. The Wish Book was not your usual Sears’ catalogue filled with the usual stuff. No, this was a child’s Christmas playground filled with toys galore. It allowed me to dream of being in a plastic Fort Apache (OK, I know, it isn’t politically correct but it was the early 60s) or World War II. But more important than the toys was what the Wish Book represented. It represented that Christmas was coming. For those of you who have lived in the north with changing seasons, snow falls, and the like, this may seem a bit odd. But I grew up in Houston where the only change in the fall to winter was going from very hot to less hot. There were no sleigh rides or jingling bells. So the Wish Book then was that annual marker that Christmas was about to arrive. In some ways I think that the passages that we read this morning are the sort of church markers that Christmas is upon us. Whenever we read about a son being given, or about Mary being honored by the gift of her messianic child, we know that Christmas is coming. We know that one more time, we will celebrate the birth of Jesus. Yet, when we see these passages in this way, as Advent road signs, saying Christmas is just ahead, we miss the impact that these words originally held. They were not annual reminders. They were the ending of one era and the beginning of another. They were the shutting of the door on a horrific past and opening a door to a bright and amazing future. For Isaiah it was a declaration that God was acting to defeat Judah’s enemies and turn a time of war, bloodshed, darkness, and fear into a time of peace and prosperity. For Mary, the angel Gabriel’s declaration was one that signaled the end of Israel’s captivity to the Romans and Greeks and the beginning of the golden age of the Kingdom of God. These were at one time, world changing endings and beginnings. In a sense what was ending was the way things had always been; war, bloodshed, violence, oppression, poverty and pain. What was beginning, was what my wife Cindy calls a Star Trek world. What she means by that is that in the Star Trek world, the earth has become a place of peace and prosperity. Everyone has enough. There is no money because if you need something it is provided. There is no more war because people understand that creating is better than destroying. This was the kind of world they would encounter through the open door of God’s action. The question for us this morning becomes this then, what do we do with these endings and beginnings. What do we do with the fact that this Star Trek world, this God’s Kingdom world has not arrived? What do we do if we are to honor the understandings of Isaiah and Mary, understandings of one epoch ending and another beginning? What do we do to be not simply pass by these stories as markers of a coming Christmas? I think are two things we need to do. First, we need to believe that such a world is possible and underway; though it may not be possible to see it complete in our lifetimes or even in our children’s or grandchildren’s life times, we need to believe that in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, something fundamental changed in the universe that what was once unthinkable, a world of peace and reconciliation, is a possibility. I realize that in the current situation in which we find ourselves as a nation and as a planet, this may seem unrealistic. Yet that possibility of God’s Kingdom world is at the heart of our message to the world. This is the message that we follow the Prince of Peace, that we follow the one who makes the impossible possible. We follow the one whose life makes possible a radically renewed world in which peace is a reality. The second thing that we need to do is to live this reality. What I mean by that is that we, as followers of Jesus Christ, as members of Everybody’s Church are called to live the reality of this new world as best we can. And if there is ever a time when we need to live into this new reality it is now. It is now because, as I have said before, this election has caused us to think, say and do things we have never done before. It has caused us to be judgmental about others because of who they voted for as if a single vote defines the essence of a person. It has caused us to see the world in terms of black and white; one candidate (you take your pick) is Darth Vader and the other Obi-Wan Kenobi. It has caused us to break old friendships and unfriend people on Facebook…though not spending so much time on Facebook might not be such a bad thing. It has caused us to be angry all the time. It is as if the old reality never left and the new reality never arrived. But it has arrived. So now we are to live into it. We are to live into it by seeing everyone through the eyes of love. We are to be those who work for the reconciliation of the world, and of our friends and family. We are to be those who demonstrate that people of diverse political, theological and cultural beliefs can be one Christ-centered community. We are to offer the world a glimpse of this new reality by being Everybody’s Church where Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, Michigan and Michigan State, and even Ohio State fans can live and work and love the world together. My challenge then for us all, and I mean us, including me, is to ask ourselves, how am I living this new reality among my friends, neighbors and even the strangers I meet? |
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