chbc comments

CHBC Sermon Blog Responses

2009-03-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

Rather than reposting every sermon, this one post will be an area where those interested can respond to various sermons at CHBC. You can read the sermon online at http://www.crescenthillbaptistchurch.org under the sermon index area. When responding as a blog, reference the particular sermon to which you're responding.
Thanks. We look forward to your opinions.

Feb 15, 2009 - "Healing Our Anxious Discontent"

2009-02-15T19:01:00.000-08:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Epiphany 6
February 15, 2009
W. Gregory Pope

Series: Healing

HEALING OUR ANXIOUS DISCONTENT

2 Kings 5:1-16; Psalm 30; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Mark 1:40-45

These are anxious times. You don’t need to hear the unemployment, stock market, and housing numbers again. You also know not many economists expect a turnaround for at least a couple of years. Such an atmosphere has its frightening hold on us. When we hear of people losing their homes, we begin to worry about losing our homes. When we hear of job losses, we begin to worry about our own jobs. I am so pleased with a group of people within our church who have gathered to begin a ministry of helping people find jobs. You can read all about it in your bulletin insert (after the sermon, of course). It is a timely ministry for these days. I hope you will spread the word and give the brochure to those you know who can benefit from it.

A few days ago as the bad economic news kept coming in, it was weighing heavy upon me, and I felt certain it was weighing rather heavily on you. And so I decided to turn the focus of today’s sermon away from the Gospel lesson on leprosy to the Hebrew lesson on leprosy. I find it to be a healing story of anxious discontent. Shakespeare wrote of “the winter of our discontent.” And indeed it is such a season for us. I pray this morning we find here a word from God for these anxious days.

It’s hard to know how to deal with disappointment, discontent, and anxiety about the future. What do we do when things don’t work out like we hoped they would, when we find ourselves unable to get what we want?

We are a people raised in a country told to expect to get what we want if we work for it. Some expect certain things as a matter of privilege. Part of what is making these difficult economic times so hard is that so many Americans have had it so good for so long. We’ve become spoiled. But as President Obama said this week, “That party’s over.”

We are tasting the anxiety that many people in our world live with all the time. Lifestyle adjustments are going to have to be required of almost all of us. Adjustments we might just find to be good for us. Someone relayed to me a quote this week from a seminary president who said, “Never waste a good recession.” Meaning, use such a time to simplify your life and do not go back to the collection of excess when times turn around. But many of us do not like the idea of not having what we want.

I

For the longest time Naaman didn’t get much practice dealing with disappointment, because he got everything he wanted. Naaman was a five-star general in the Syrian army welcomed in the oval office without even knocking on the door. He received every honor that military skill and good fortune can bring. As the leader in a string of victories, this Secretary of Defense was living every soldier’s dream.

Then the rug is pulled out from under him. They’re just a few white spots, but he has no way of knowing if or when it will get worse. He keeps his hands in his pockets, afraid that people will see what’s happening. He has to do something. He is desperate at the thought of contracting leprosy. Something dramatic needs to happen soon.

There just happens to be a Jewish girl who works in Naaman’s kitchen. And one day she mentions that there’s a prophet back home in Israel who can cure leprosy. At first Naaman says, “No, we’ve got doctors here in Syria,” but then he decides it’s time to see a specialist. And soon he’s on Air Force One with a blank check and a letter from his king asking the king of Israel to heal Naaman.

When Jehoram, the Israelite king reads the letter his hands begin to shake: “How am I supposed to cure leprosy?” So Jehoram begins pacing around the throne room about to fall apart when he gets word that Elisha, the court chaplain, wants to see Naaman.

Naaman leaves the palace in a parade that roars down the side streets - motorcycle escorts, flags fluttering from each vehicle, and the secret service running behind. Naaman’s confidence returns. Something big is about to happen. The procession comes to a halt in a cloud of dust in front of Elisha’s little cottage. And Naaman waits, expecting the prophet to be awed by his guests and to come out bowing and scraping. The dust begins to settle as he honks the horn with a long blast.

Finally the door of the cottage opens and someone walks out, but it’s not Elisha. It’s the houseboy with a stupid suggestion: “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times,: he tells Naaman, “and you’ll be fine.”

Naaman is beside himself. “Who does this prophet think he is? I just came from the palaces of two kings and this backwater charlatan sends out a kid. Why should I bathe in a filthy little ditch when there are beautiful clear streams back home in Damascus? If I needed a bath, I’d use one of the six bathrooms in my house. I can’t believe I came all this way for this.”

So here he is. He’s gone to a lot of trouble to get an appointment with a world famous skin specialist and now the doctor, who hasn’t even examined him, sends out a prescription through his PA that says to take seven dips in the Trinity River and don’t call me in the morning. Naaman cusses and scratches and tells the entourage “We’re going home!” Naaman didn’t get what he wanted, so he will sulk rather than take what falls short of his expectations.

One of his servants timidly speaks up. “Sir, as long as we’re here, I mean, if the prophet had said what you wanted him to say, then you would have done it, right? Isn’t it worth a try?”

So they go to the muddy water of the Jordan. And when Naaman comes up out of the water the seventh time, he looks like an ad for Palmolive soap. Naaman is so grateful he converts on the spot to Yahweh, the God of Israel. He reaches into his suit pocket for an inch of hundred-dollar bills, but Elisha says he’s a prophet, not a dermatologist, and refuses to take any money. Another prophet like Jesus would be refusing to benefit from another’s healing.

Do you see what almost happened? The simplicity of the directions almost kept Naaman from following them. To have to do something that he felt was beneath him almost caused him to miss out on a gift from God. It’s easy to turn down and to scoff at what seems ordinary when we’re hoping for something special. And when we’re not getting the treatment we think we deserve, when what we’re getting is less than what we hoped for, it’s easy to be disappointed.

II

We all have to deal with the disappointment of not getting exactly what we hope for, because we all want more, don’t we. There a few things we wish we could change and control.

Seven pastors were at a minister’s conference eating lunch. And one of them said, “Okay guys. We’re far from home. We’re all friends. What would you be if you could be anything in the world?”

One of them began: “When I was in college I wanted to be an architect, but I didn’t think that I could do the math. Now some days I think that I was smart enough after all.”

A second minister said: “My favorite part of being a pastor is visiting sick people. Every time I walk into a hospital I wish I was a doctor, instead of a pastor.

Another said: “Whenever I read a book by John Grisham or Anne Lamott I think, ‘You know, that’s the life.’ And the only thing that keeps me from being a famous writer is a complete lack of talent.”

The fourth minister said: “I dream of being a pastor, but I always dream of being the pastor of some other church.”

Then another said: “I just want to be a rich church member who calls the pastor on Monday morning to complain.” (That pastor just needs to take Mondays off like I do!)

They all went around the table admitting that every now and then, they all wish for something else.

It has been said that for every path taken there are ten not taken at which we glance over the shoulder. Most all of us have fantasies about living in different places, with different jobs, and different people. Perhaps you’ve thought about being a tycoon on Wall Street or a justice on the Supreme Court or a professor at a prestigious university or a lifeguard in Hawaii.

And when any of us see an old classmate who’s done well, how often the green-eyed monster rears her head. The other possibilities, the bigger dreams, what might have been, cross everyone’s mind. But preoccupation with the cards in someone else’s hand always leaves us dissatisfied with the cards we’ve been dealt.

Our dreams always exceed our grasp, so we get the mistaken impression that we’ve failed because our lives aren’t everything we imagine them being. Dwelling on who we are not causes us to doubt and denigrate who we are.

And especially in these anxious economic time, if we spend too much energy wishing for what we don’t have, then we won’t see what we do have. We will miss the small joys we’ve been given because we’re waiting for joys that probably aren’t coming. We overlook the people we should love because we’re dreaming of someone else more perfect who we’ll never get a chance to love.

Missionary doctor Albert Schweitzer said, “Plenty of people write to me in the hope of getting some spectacular work to do, and at the same time they fail to see the worthwhileness of the immediate duty God has given them.”

Some of the best gifts God gives aren’t wrapped like we think they should be wrapped. But we shouldn’t be so certain which are the best gifts until we open them.

Some of the most popular books in recent years have titles like “Life’s Little Instruction Book.” We might initially assume that they are filled with sage wisdom on the meaning of existence, but what we usually find are suggestions like:

compliment three people every day
watch the sunrise
remember other people’s birthdays
over tip the breakfast waitress
be good to your pastor

The small things in life are sacred. The keys to contentment and joy are simple truths that we already know. They won’t cure your economic woes, but they might bring healing to your soul and joy to others around you.

Fulfillment isn’t found in the places we’re not, but in the midst of everyday ordinary experiences that just might become extraordinary. How did those great philosophers of rock ‘n’ roll, the Rolling Stones, put it: “You can’t always get what you want, but you find sometimes, yea sometimes, you get what you need.” [1]

From time to time, we’ll think about the job, the family, the money, or the personality that we don’t have. But when we finish thinking about everything we don’t have, we need to see what we do have. From time to time, we’ll wish we were talented, rich, and famous, but at the end of the day God invites us to want more than anything else . . .

to be Christian
to be the person God wants us to be
to be good at what we have in us to be good at
to give thanks for the good gifts already in our hands
to love the people we’ve been given to love
to discover that God is not somewhere else, waiting for us to arrive,
but that God is with us in this place and in these people.

This is the hopeful perspective to which I would call us in these days. Because as that great spiritual guide John Claypool often said in this very room: “Despair is presumptuous.”

When we could worry about what might happen, or be disappointed in what has happened that we did not want, why not instead, look around at what we have and be grateful.

In this winter of our anxious discontent:

Let us lean on one another.
Let us share our anxious hearts with one another.
Let us share what we have with one another in our time of need.
Let us pray that world leaders will seek economic solutions that are just.
Let us listen to the simple words of servant-girls and house-boys.
Let us be faithful in the small things.

Let us turn our trust away from the American Dream and place our trust in the One Who Holds Us All in hands of divine care,
the One who cares more for our souls than our bank accounts.

Let us open our hearts to what new thing God may do in our lives and in our world. It might just be for our healing after all.

______________________

1. The Rolling Stones, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, Let It Bleed, 1969

December 24, 2008 - "The Gift of God's Self - The Gift of Your Self"

2009-01-01T15:15:00.000-08:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Christmas Eve
December 24, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

Series: Re-Gifting God’s Gifts
THE GIFT OF GOD’S SELF - THE GIFT OF YOUR SELF

Isaiah 9:2-7; Psalm 96-98; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 1:1-4; Luke 2:1-20; John 1:1-14

This Advent season we have been Re-Gifting God’s Gifts.

When we think of re-gifting we usually think of giving to someone else those gifts we were given that we either did not care for or have more of than we need.

Just for curiosity’s sake: How many of you are re-gifting this year? Raise your hand. I know your family may be sitting beside you and you can’t tell them you’re re-gifting an old gift, but you may just want to raise your hand to make them wonder about their gift.

This season we’ve been talking about Re-Gifting God’s Gifts of hope, peace, joy, and love - not as gifts we do not care for or have too much of, but as gifts we simply cannot keep to ourselves.

We’ve been asking ourselves two questions each week:

One: Where have you found God’s hope, peace, joy, love?
and
Two: How can we re-gift God’s gifts to others and to the world?

God’s gifts of hope, peace, joy, and love can never be too plentiful and are gifts we care for deeply. And the wonderful thing about re-gifting God’s gifts is that you can share them and keep them at the same time.

Tonight as we remember and celebrate the gift of God’s self to us in Jesus Christ, let us also consider how we can re-gift by giving our selves to God, to others, and to the world.

The Gift of God’s Self

The gift of God’s self. In the Christ of Bethlehem, God entered the world in a way God had never done before.

Since the first light of creation and eternity past, the Spirit of God has covered the cosmos - every particle, every black hole, every galaxy. God has been present at the birth of every new star and gives us eyes to see and minds to learn of God’s ever-expanding universe. There is no place in the whole creation where God is not present.

God has walked through garden and wilderness, smiled in birthing rooms and wept in fields of war. There has never been a moment when God did not cradle the whole world in beloved hands. That includes your life and mine.

On this precious speck of dust called earth, God has made God’s self known to us.

The book of Hebrews recounts for us how in times past God has spoken through creation and prophets, but now in Christ God speaks through a Son.

“A child has been born, a son is given. He is Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Prince, Everlasting Father, Mighty God.”

In the mystery of Incarnation, the Word God has been speaking since Day One, the Word through whom God created the world, that Word has become flesh. The Mighty God has taken on skin and bone, blood and human limitation and come to live among us. The Mighty God has come to save us, to be the light in our darkness.

In the New Testament letter of Titus, we read that the scope of this act is universal in its redemption: God’s grace has appeared in Christ bringing salvation to all.

If your mind cannot wrap itself around this miracle of Incarnation, that means you understand. In humility and wonder, you stand under the great mystery and the generous love that is beyond all telling.

The Re-Gifting of Ourselves

But you know what? The miracle of Incarnation continues with you and me and every stranger you meet. Every human face - old and young, brown and white, male and female - bears the face of God in Christ.

Sometimes it takes the tiny face of a Harley Grace to see the miracle of Christmas. Maybe that is why, without our fully knowing, we say Christmas is about children.

Just this week I read a BBC news story with the headline “Child bishop takes on church role.” The story reports that in the southern English county of Hampshire, a nine-year-old girl named Ophelia Wells is serving as bishop at an Anglican cathedral during most of December.

She is preaching every Sunday. And she has made some new rules, including one allowing children to ring the church bells, and another declaring that a free glass of wine will be given to those who go to church for two weeks in a row.

Ophelia is very pleased to occupy the position. She said, “It’s going to be fun. Because I get to boss people around.”

Ophelia’s not the only one. Children have also been appointed bishops at cathedrals in Hereford and Winchester and who knows where else. Each of them is serving from December 6 to December 28.

It’s the revival of a tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages, and it has to do with St. Nicholas. He lived in the 4th century in Turkey, and was himself a bishop. He is the patron saint of sailors and, more famously, of children. His feast day is December 6, and he has been known in some parts of the world to bring presents to children on that day.

As part of the celebration of his feast day, medieval English cathedrals and some of the parish churches would appoint a child, the smallest singer in the choir, to act as bishop for the rest of the month. Other children joined in taking charge. The clergy were dismissed and the kids took over. When the Reformation came, the practice was ended; but now in some quarters it is making a happy comeback. Sounds like fun.

There is a text often read in Advent from the prophet Isaiah that says, “a little child shall lead them.” It is read in this season because we gather around a manger to adore a child who is Emmanuel, God-with-us.

What I want us to see tonight is that you and I are the child-bishop, God’s priest, called not to boss other people around, but called to embody the holy presence of Christ to the world. To continue the Incarnation, to be God’s Word made flesh, led by Bethlehem’s Child.

In particular, it is the church, those bound together in the baptized following of Jesus, who are the Body of Christ, the hands and feet and face of Christ to one another and to the world.

God has come to us in Christ. Christ gave himself up for us all. So we give ourselves to one another, to the world, and to God.

Like the shepherds we tell what we have seen and heard - how the presence of God has come near to us in Jesus Christ, sharing the hope and peace and joy and love of God.

You may not have been able this year to afford the gifts you wanted for those you love. So why don’t you just give the gift of your precious self.

Conclusion

The greatest gift of all awaits us this night in a stable under a cross-shaped star. It is the gift of new life wrapped in blankets of hope and peace, joy and love. It is Emmanuel, God-with-us. The gift of God’s very self is offered you this night. Open your hands, open your heart, and take into yourself eternal life.

And then, in light of God’s generous love and grace, offer yourself back to God in holy living, compassionate generosity, grateful worship, and sacrificial love.

We give ourselves to God by taking care of this world God has made and all who live within it. Giving ourselves for the well-being of others. Giving ourselves as Christ to the world with abandon and great love.

Welcome the Christ. Be the Christ. Give the Christ away.

God has come to live among us.

December 21, 2008 - "Re-gifting Love"

2009-01-01T15:10:00.000-08:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
The Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 21, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

Series: Re-Gifting God’s Gifts

RE-GIFTING LOVE
A Pastoral Meditation

2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Luke 1:47-55; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38

This Advent season we are re-gifting. We are opening our hearts to receive God’s gifts of hope, peace, joy, and love and then re-gifting them to the world around us.

Today we take a moment to ponder the gift of love.

God’s Love For Us

The psalmist says, “I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord.”

God’s love for each us is forever faithful.

Though our specific calling is different than that of Mary’s, God would want us to hear the same words Mary heard from the angel: “You have found favor with God.” God’s love and grace are here for each of us to receive.

For God so loved the world God gave us Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, through whom we receive the gift of eternal life. For God so loved the world, God gave.

Giving is what love does. Giving is how love expresses itself. The heart of love is giving, therefore giving is at the heart of God.

What we learn about God at Christmas is that God is not a taker, but a giver.

The biblical story teaches us that God has been giving from the very beginning.

The God of scripture is a God who creates with beauty and generosity and creativity.

In the book of James we are told that every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of light.

In the book of Lamentations the writer proclaims of God: “Your mercies are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.” Every morning God is saying, “Did you like that sunrise yesterday? Here’s another one. Here is food for your body. Here is air for your lungs. Here is beauty for your eyes. Here is music for your ears. Here is strength for your needs. Here are friends for your heart. Here is a purpose for your day. God is giving and giving and giving all the time.

And that first Christmas, God finally got to give the best gift of all. It’s like God had been giving and giving since the beginning of creation, but he had this one gift he had been saving up all these years. For God so loved the world he gave his only Son so that you and I might know once and for all that we are God’s Beloved, that God’s love is forever ours.

The Re-gifting of Our Love to God and God’s Love to the World

We are all of us called to receive God’s love and then re-gift that love to God and to the world.

God has loved us and is faithful toward us, therefore, we love God and others and embody God’s faithfulness for the world to see.

We re-gift love to God like Mary - in obedience and in the willingness to do what God asks of us.

And what does God ask of us? To love one another and to share God’s love in acts of compassion.

Who do you know in need of God’s love this Christmas season?

What gift of love can you share?

As we ponder the gift of God’s love to us this Christmas, may we also consider how that love can be re-gifted through us.

December 14, 2008 - "Re-Gifting Joy"

2008-12-20T15:07:00.000-08:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Advent III
December 14, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

Series: Re-Gifting God’s Gifts
RE-GIFTING JOY

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126 or Luke 1:47-55
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28

When Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman get together on film I have to see it. (My oldest daughter thinks Jack Nicholson is just too creepy. And as far as I know, she hasn’t even seen “The Shining.”)

Nicholson and Freeman recently teamed up in “The Bucket List” as two guys who meet in the hospital and learn about the same time that they are both terminally ill. Nicholson is a spoiled wealthy old man miserable with his existence. Freeman is a middle class auto mechanic who can answer every question on the game show Jeopardy.

Having just gotten the news of his illness, Freeman spends the night writing a “bucket list,” things he wants to do before he “kicks the bucket.” Have you ever thought about what would be on your bucket list? Perhaps Freeman’s list could help you. He includes such things as:

Witness something truly majestic
Help a complete stranger for a common good
Laugh till I cry
Drive a Shelby Mustang
Get a tattoo
Visit Stonehenge
Go skydiving
See the pyramids

Not intended for anyone else’s eyes, Nicholson finds the list crumpled on the floor and reads it, then convinces Freeman to travel with him and do the very things on that list.

More than half-way through fulfilling the list, sitting on a mountain viewing the pyramids, Freeman tells Nicholson about a philosophy that says: When you get to heaven’s gates, there are two questions to be asked of you:

First, Have you found your joy?
And second, Has your life brought joy to someone else?

It was this scene and these two questions that led me toward our Advent theme this year of Re-Gifting God’s Gifts - receiving from God and sharing with others the gifts of hope, peace, joy, and love.

Today, the gift of joy.

As we look at our scripture lessons for this week we hear Paul’s call to “rejoice always.” I don’t know about you, but I’ve not mastered that one yet.

The psalmist sings a song celebrating the day when Israel returned from exile. Mindful of the great things God had done for them, their mouths were filled with laughter and shouts of joy were upon their tongues. And prayers that those who have sown tears will reap great joy.

The prophet Isaiah gave those returning from exile a reason for joy and a way to share joy. He was writing of God’s servant Israel. A few centuries later Jesus picked up Isaiah’s message for Israel as his own mission. Recorded in Luke’s Gospel is the moment where Jesus stands in the synagogue and reads the beginning words from Isaiah 61.

Isaiah describes a quality of life here and now on earth that reflects God’s desire for human community: good news, healing, freedom, release, justice, comfort, and joy. Jesus called it the kingdom of God.

And so the Christ of Bethlehem, full of the Spirit of God and inspired by Isaiah’s vision, comes with joy:

bringing good news to the oppressed - the rich and powerful oppressors of our world who make millions on the backs of poor laborers and Burmese military powers who drive people by force from their land will be brought to justice.

He comes binding up the brokenhearted (61:1) - your heart and mine broken by the world and by our own sin. Christ is coming to heal us.

He comes proclaiming freedom to captives and release to prisoners (61:1). Whether bound by the prison chains of our own making, or prisoners held in exile from their land, or imprisoned illegally by unjust governments, Christ is coming to bring freedom and release. Though faithful Christians have often found themselves behind bars for living their faith, there has always been a freedom even in prison that their captors could not take away. Christ is coming to free us from our prisons.

And he comes proclaiming the year of Jubilee (61:2). This was an event described in the book of Leviticus to occur every 50 years. A time when debts are wiped away, slaves are freed, fields are allowed to rest for a year, and land is returned to its original owners. This is so that property is not just owned by the few and so that the masses will not remain oppressed in debt and slavery. It is so that wealth is not passed along to those who do not work, and so that families do not remain in cycles of poverty. It is a call to social and economic justice, when the restoration of equality becomes the new order of the day. This is the world-changing word of justice Jesus comes preaching.

Jesus also comes to comfort those who mourn (61:2-3), replacing the ashes of our lives with garlands of beauty, bringing gladness where is sadness, strengthening the faint spirit, filling our mouth with praise. Yes, your tears of sorrow will turn one day return to songs of praise.

Jesus comes to repair ruined cities (61:4) - our own city where poverty and homelessness and hopelessness walk the streets, and war-torn cities across the world where joy has been crushed by the stench of death and destruction. Christ comes to heal ruined nations, ours and others, that have forgotten their way in the world.

But first we have to mourn. To know joy we first have to mourn the oppressive and violent condition of our hearts and lives, community and world. And welcome the Christ who is coming to restore and make new.

Isaiah says we receive joy by being clothed with the garment of salvation and covered in the robe of righteousness, receiving the bridegroom’s garland and the bride’s jewels (61:10). This is the joy of a wedding. When lives are brought together and the celebration of love is in the air. This is the joy Jesus comes to bring.

And as followers of Jesus, his mission becomes our own. It is a message and mission of joy that we are to receive and then share with the world as witnesses to the light of God’s love.

In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians he writes, “Do not despise the words of the prophet.” These words of the prophets Isaiah and Jesus we must be careful not to despise or ignore.

This is the gospel of joy that we receive and then share. God’s work in our world is a partnership, a covenant between God and God’s people, where we continue the work of Christ in the world through the power of the Holy Spirit, realizing that God’s special concern is for the lowest and the weakest.

Joy does not come by insulating ourselves from the pain of the world. As a missional community, we turn our attention toward the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners, and the mournful. Joy comes by entering what Miguel Unamuno calls “the common weeping” of the world, and in the power of the Holy Spirit we continue the mission of Jesus:

working on behalf of the oppressed,
tending to the brokenhearted,

proclaiming release on behalf of those held captive unjustly in prisons around the world, and helping free those held captive in a prison of their own making,
comforting those who mourn: the grieving, the refugee, the lonely, the unemployed,
helping rebuild ruined cities and nations with the materials of hope and peace, joy and love, through the giving of ourselves and our resources.

There are so many people in our world oppressed, brokenhearted, captive, or imprisoned in some way, wondering when God’s transformation will come. Advent is a time of waiting and preparation for God to transform the world through Jesus Christ.

God sent Christ to light up our world with joy. And Christ sends us to share joy by bearing witness to the light of the world.

Where have you found joy? I had a moment of surprising joy during our first summer in Louisville when Louie and June Bailey took Cindy and me to the Smith-Berry Winery for a night of bluegrass music and good farm-fresh eating. If I had had a bucket list it would have been one item shorter after that night having met Wendell Berry who for 15 years has been one of my favorite writers. He is one of the wisest and most courageous voices in our world today, a prophet whose words we need not despise, and one whose beautiful fiction brings great delight.

That night I also met Wendell’s grand-daughter, Emily, who is a student here at the Highland Latin School. She was handing out tickets for door prizes. I asked her if she was going to make sure I won. Undeterred by my request, she boldly asked me what she would get in return. Nonchalantly I said, “$100.00.” And wouldn’t you know it - for the first time in my life I won a door prize - four very nice Smith-Berry wine glasses! Joy!

For the past three years I have seen Emily in the hallways numerous times. And each time she says with a great big smile, “You owe me $100.00.” And I say unconvincingly to her, “It’s coming.”

Well, having received a small gift of joy three years ago, I would like to announce that today I am re-gifting with this check of $100.00 to Emily’s favorite charity or cause in the hopes of bringing joy to her and to the people her charity might help.

What about you? Where have you found joy? and
How has your life brought joy to someone else?

Nobel Prize winner George Bernard Shaw wrote a poem entitled “True Joy of Life.”

This is the true joy of life.
The being used for a purpose
Recognized by yourself as a mighty one.
The being a force of nature
Instead of a feverish, selfish
Little clod of ailments and grievances

Complaining that the world will not
Devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life
belongs to the whole community
And as long as I live,
It is my privilege to do for it
Whatever I can.
I want to be thoroughly
Used up when I die,
For the harder I work the more I live.
I rejoice in life for its own sake.
Life is no brief candle to me.
It is a sort of splendid torch
Which I’ve got hold of
For the moment
And I want to make it burn
As brightly as possible before
Handing it on to future generations.

If you are this day in search of joy, I invite you to join this Advent journey toward Bethlehem and experience the God who has come near to us in the Christ Child. People all around him are rejoicing. His mother Mary rejoices that she has found favor with God. Angels are sharing good news of great joy for all people, including you. And shepherds are glorifying and praising God for what they have seen and heard. Christmas joy can be yours.

If you have known God’s joy, consider for a moment: Who brought the news of joy to you? What have you seen and heard and experienced that brought joy to you that you can share with others?

True joy, everlasting joy, a joy much deeper than happiness, is found in a relationship with the God who gave us life and loved us so much he came to live among us in Jesus Christ, teaching us God’s way and God’s truth, whose words and deeds are full of life. And he calls us all to live in God’s grace and forgiveness, and to give ourselves for the sake of the world, to live a life burning as a “splendid torch” with God’s fire of justice and joy.

Every year at Christmas we see the transformation of homes, churches and places of business with bright lights and Christmas pageantry. But what other than hanging of the green and the singing of Christmas carols are we, God’s people, doing in the world to bring the good news of great joy of God’s transformation? What will we do this year to bring joy to someone perhaps we don’t even know: the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the imprisoned, those in mourning? Where will we bring joy to this frightened, anxious, violent city and nation of ours?

I invite you in the silence to sit on the mountain, as did Nicholson and Freeman, and ask yourself: Have you found your joy? And if so, offer a prayer of thanks. And then ask God how your life can bring joy to someone else. Perhaps we can “rejoice always” after all. If joy is not something we’re receiving at the moment, it can be something we are re-gifting. Let us prayerfully reflect in the silence.

December 7, 2008 - "Re-Gifting Peace"

2008-12-13T17:33:00.000-08:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
December 7, 2008
Advent II
Jason W. Crosby

Re-Gifting Peace

Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13; II Peter 3:8-15a; Mark 1:1-8

Just beneath the comfortable trappings of this season lurks a vexing problem. Distractions abound to keep us occupied these days. Lights which bring a sensation of warmth to cold dark nights. Trees with smells that quickly flood our minds with good memories of the past. Songs like Jingle Bells make us smile. Profound, poignant, inspiring worship services. Enough diversions exist to entrance us, so that we do not have to deal with our problem. For us to discuss peace and regifting peace, however, we must wrestle this conundrum.

Not that we don’t anticipate problems this time of year. The holidays put our lives and our relationships under a microscope. Inner tensions and familial rifts are magnified greatly at Christmas, so much so that many people find themselves depressed and families find themselves fighting with one another.

What followers of Christ may not expect this time of year is having to deal with a problem rooted in the birth of Christ. The apostle Paul wrote, “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles” (1 Cor. 1:23). Christ’s death and resurrection presents those who are religious and those who are not with a whole slew of problematic questions. Why would a good God put Christ to death on a cross is one such question circulating at Easter. “He could as well have written,” according to Frederick Buechner, “We preach Christ born’ or ‘We preach Christmas,’ because the birth presents no fewer problems than the death does.” [1]

One problem, of many, that stems from Christmas is that now we live in an in-between time. God incarnate came, continues to dwell with us, but is not yet fully manifest. With the birth came a “foretaste of God’s glory divine” says Fanny J. Crosby in her hymn “Blessed Assurance.” Still, we only caught a glimpse of what we hope is to come. Christ’s birth put us on a bridge between two great chasms. Behind us, on one side sits the world as it was prior to the birth of Christ. Those touched by Christ’s love and grace cannot return to that place. We are different now. Yet, we can’t see what lies ahead. We hope we possess an idea as to what that promised land will be like. Our vision of that place, however, is murky at best. So, here we are, on a bridge, where we possess hearts of generosity and greediness, where we love one another and hate one another, care for one another and kill one another. The double lives we lead during this in-between time, lives both beautiful and repulsive, can lead us into frustration and uneasiness. Here is our Chistmas problem – When will we move beyond the foretaste of God’s glory given to us at Christ birth and be able to sit down for the full meal? How much longer will we have to live with the greed, hate, and killing around us?

The author of 2 Peter provides a response to these very questions. The community to whom this epistle was written lived a few generations after Christ. Some believed that the Savior who came, would have already returned by their time. As they contemplated their in-between existence, discontentment began to swell within them. When, they wondered, would the God who came once, come again?

I imagine the author’s answer was unsatisfactory to many then. It certainly is not likely to be kindly received these days. The writer tells those living on the bridge to wait.

Most people don’t like waiting. Especially these days, when we live in an immediate gratification world. The internet enables us to communicate with people on the other side of the globe instantaneously. All we have to do is turn on the television and the 24 hour a day, seven day a week, 365 day a year news channels tell us what happening in any place at that very moment. Consequently, many of us become agitated when we have to wait for an appointment, in traffic, or for our food to arrive at a restaurant. These are relatively petty issues compared to the serious injustices around us. The author’s plea to wait seems particularly unsettling and anachronistic when people live in a world where families find themselves on the streets because of others greed, where addiction suffocates hopes and dreams, where betrayal breaks the bonds of relationship, where the deaths of innocent children are explained away as collateral damage.

During advent, however, we wait. Consciously waiting is what sets advent apart from others times of the year. Like a lot of children, Christmas morning was my promised land. I wanted it to arrive as soon as possible. No matter how much I wished December 25th would come more quickly, I lacked the ability to alter the flow of time. Instead of wallowing in my frustration, each advent season I would make a chain of loops of red and green construction paper. Each day, as Christmas drew closer, I would remove a loop from the chain, and wait. I wasn’t just sitting around my room with my chain made of construction paper waiting, however. In retrospect, I realize that in waiting something happened to me. Rather that existing in a state of high anxiety, my advent chain gave me a greater sense of contentment. I say a greater sense of contentment because I’m sure that my mother, who is here today, will readily attest to the fact that I was still very anxious in the days leading up to Christmas. But, waiting with that chain settled me, at least somewhat.

Each year, when we wait during advent, we wait in the expectation that something more will happen. As we wait to mark the birthday of Jesus, don’t we do so expecting that we will reencounter the gifts given to us when God became incarnate? Advent waiting is good practice for us, since 52 weeks of the year we are waiting on that bridge in-between what was and what will be. Just as when we consciously wait during advent we expect something more to happen, perhaps we should expect something more to happen when consciously waiting the remaining days of the year.

What is that something more that might happen to us if we engage in conscious waiting year round? For one, a commitment to waiting will breed greater attentiveness. Waiting for the new heaven and the new earth is not like waiting for a casserole to bake. Waiting for a casserole demands passive waiting. Once the dish is in the oven, there is not much more a person can do to change that composition of that casserole. You can clean up the kitchen or work on another dish, but as for the casserole, all you can do is wait. Waiting while we journey to the other side of the great divide is a very different act. We’re not sure what the outcome will be. We’re not sure how we will get there. We don’t have a recipe to follow. So, we must listen very carefully while waiting. We must be very attune to the present moment in which we find ourselves. Henri Nouwen wrote, “Waiting, then, is not passive. It involves nurturing the moment, as a mother nurtures the child that is growing in her. Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Mary were very present to the moment. That is why they could hear the angel. They were alert, attentive to the voice that spoke to them and said, ‘Don’t be afraid. Something is happening to you. Pay attention.” [2] If we are attentive, we may sense that God is doing something to us while we wait. We may also become more adventurous. Active, attentive waiting leads us to places we never imagined we go. The Magi practiced active, attentive waiting and they ended up at the manager. This congregation has practiced active, attentive waiting that has repeatedly set it on a course impossible to predict.

Actively waiting for God, which enables us to better hear God when God speaks, and better move when God says go, might just be the best path to peace available for us amid the duality of these in between times. Waiting in this fashion brings us closer to God’s peace. The community to whom Isaiah 40 addressed found themselves waiting in exile in Babylon. Waiting in oppression to return home. Yet, in waiting God’s comfort and God’s peace was revealed. It’s waiting, actively and attentively, for God’s peace that may very well be our only hope of survival in this time. Without it, our greed may overcome our generosity, our hate may overtake our love.

This idea that the path to peace follows the way of waiting may sound absurd to some. The final poem written by Dietrich Bonheoffer suggests that at least for him, this notion that waiting for God might bring about peace has traction. Bonheoffer, the German Christian minister who plotted to bring down Hitler’s Nazi regime, was put in prison in November of 1943. 1944 proved to be his last Christmas. In the cellar of a Nazi prison on December 19, 1944 with death creeping near, he wrote a letter to his fiancé. He closed that letter with his final poem, which in part, reads:

By kindly powers surrounded, peaceful and true,
Wonderfully protected with consolation dear,
Safely, I dwell with you this whole day through
And surely into another year.

Though from the old our hearts are still in pain,
While evil days oppress with burdens still,
Lord, give to our frightened souls again,
Salvation, and thy promises fulfill.

And should thou offer us the bitter cup, resembling
Sorrow, filled to the brim and overflowing,
We will receive it thankfully, without trembling,
From thy hand so good and ever-loving.

But, if it be thy will again to give
Joy of this world and bright sunshine,
Then in our minds we will past times relive
And all our days be wholly thine.

When we are wrapped in silence most profound,
May we hear that song most fully raised
From all the unseen world that lies around
And thou art by all thy children praised.

By kindly powers protected wonderfully,
Confident, we wait for come what may,
Night and morning, God is by us, faithfully
And surely at each new born day. [3]

He was killed April 9, 1945. Bonhoeffer lived in the worst conditions this in-between time has arguably ever seen. Yet, in his waiting, he had little else to do in his Nazi prison cell; he found a gift, of peace, that only God can offer.

Those who know peace, naturally will re-gift it. Peace is not something that belongs to us that we own or possess. Peace is not something we can manufacture for ourselves. It is not a tool, a building, or even a career. It is a gift that we can prepare ourselves to receive or reject. Really, it is impossible to hoard peace. If we keep peace to ourselves like wealth, we will lose it. That is because there is a communal element to knowing inner-peace while waiting in these in-between times. Isaiah and the epistle were written to communities. Living in community and loving others while attentively waiting is another ingredient necessary for us to know peace. Those we know peace, naturally, will regift it as a way of demonstrating love to others with whom we wait.

“Indian giver” is considered to be a pejorative term. It shouldn’t be. It is customary in Native American cultures that whenever a gift is given to someone, that gift is shared with the entire community. Peace knowers will be Indian givers.

We may regift peace by heeding Isaiah’s words, “preparing the way, by making straight a highway in the desert for our Lord.” In others words, by using our voices to stand non-violently in opposition to violence, or by using our feet to march in protest to injustice in any form, we regift peace. Today let us also remember, those who know peace, may give it away, by being instruments of peace, who make sweet, warm melodies - melodies that call others to wait with them, in between what was and what, by God’s grace, will be.

___________________________________________
1. Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, HarperCollins, 90.
2. Henri Nouwen, Watch for the Light: Reading for Advent and Christmas, Plough, 2001, 32.
3. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons, edited and translated by Edwin Robertson, Zondervan, 2005, 180-181.

Nov 30, 2008 - "Re-Gifting Hope"

2008-12-02T18:20:00.000-08:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
The First Sunday of Advent
November 30, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

Series: Re-Gifting God’s Gifts

RE-GIFTING HOPE

Isaiah 64:1-9; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19;
1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Mark 13:24-37

Our theme for Advent this year is Re-gifting God’s Gifts - the gifts of hope, peace, joy, love, and the gift of God’s self.

We will be asking ourselves two questions:

1. Where do you find hope, peace, joy, love?

and

2. How do you share God’s hope, peace, joy, and love with others?

We will ponder receiving God’s gifts and then re-gifting them, sharing them with the world.

When we think of re-gifting we usually think of giving away those gifts we were given that we either did not care for or have more of than we need.

God’s gifts of hope, peace, joy, and love can never be too plentiful and are gifts we care for deeply. And the wonderful thing about re-gifting God’s gifts is that you can share them and keep them for yourself at the same time.

At the Advent wreath you are going to hear stories of how people have received and given the gifts of hope, peace, joy and love.

So I invite you to open your hearts this Advent season to the great gifts of God.

And then to open your hands to share those gifts with the world.

The Cry for Hope

It has been said that human beings can live without anything except hope. When hope dies, we die. We can live for brief periods of time without love, but we cannot live without the hope of love soon coming our way. We can live in desperate times if have the hope of a better tomorrow.

In her novel Breathing Lessons, Anne Tyler describes a middle-aged character named Maggie as one who “viewed her life as circular; it forever repeated itself and was entirely lacking in hope.” [1]

Some people view their lives and history itself as a treadmill that goes round and round in monotonous cycles, no hope of anything new. To feel as if we are without hope is to live at the bottom of the bottom.

How do we get so low?

The prophet Isaiah points to our sin as one cause of such hopelessness, choices we have made that harm ourselves and others and have a way of hiding God’s face from us. To be hidden from God’s face, blocked from the light of God’s love, to feel out of the reach of God’s gracious hand, is to indeed feel hopeless.

Are there ways of living your life that keep God’s face hidden from you? Are there choices you are making that are turning your life away from God?

The hiddenness of God is a mystery. It’s hard to know if God does indeed turn away from us for a season or if it is only perception. Reality or perception, if we do not feel God’s presence, or believe God is present, our lives can become blinded to hope.

Isaiah puts some of the blame on God for not being more visibly and powerfully present to Israel in their return from exile. Isaiah cries out to God, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down” - do what you did in the past, bring fire and earthquake, make our enemies tremble. Three times he asks for God’s presence, but it seems to Isaiah that God has hidden God’s self from the people.

Scott Bader-Saye believes this divine inaction tells us something about the way God has chosen to relate to the world. The hidden God of Isaiah 64 is the God who refuses to act powerfully and dramatically to rescue.

And in many ways this understanding makes more sense to us. The frustration Isaiah feels is the frustration we often feel. It is the struggle to reconcile the ancient stories of God’s powerful presence with our present experience where God doesn’t seem to act so powerfully. We have these biblical stories of God’s grand intervention and wonder why God doesn’t do the same today. Why would God deliver Israel from Egypt but not deliver six million Jews from Hitler’s death camps? [2]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing from a German concentration camp in 1944, offered this perspective. He said “God lets himself be pushed out of the world and on to the cross. God is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which God is with us and helps us.” [3]

For Bonhoeffer this realization was not a denial of faith but a retrieval of faith in the God of the cross, whose power is suffering, whose omnipotence is vulnerability, who relates to the world through the vulnerable path of non-coercive love and suffering service rather than through domination and force.

God’s refusal to replicate a Red Sea-type deliverance does not mean that God has abandoned God’s people. Our hope does not rely on God’s acting today in the same ways God acted in the ancient stories, but it does rely on God’s being the same God yesterday, today, and tomorrow - a God who hears our cries, a God who does not abandon us, a God that will finally redeem all that is lost in a new heaven and a new earth (Isa 65:17). [4]

What has been the testimony of scripture and saints down through the centuries is that the absence of God is a very real experience, but that God’s absence is never permanent. Hope is never completely lost.

While Isaiah says God has hidden God’s self from us, the psalmist cries for God to shine God’s face upon us that we may be saved.

We are like the people of Israel - waiting, wanting, expecting to see the face of God.

Even though the people of God had sinned and felt God had hidden God’s face from them, they still trusted God in their spiritual exile.

Our hope is in God’s restoration: Restore us, O God, the psalmist prays.

Where God’s Hope is Found

How does restoration come? Where can we see God’s face shine upon us? Where do we find God’s hope in the world?

Isaiah points us to the past. God did awesome deeds we did not expect. God may not have given us a Red Sea deliverance, but God did carry us through some stormy waters: the death of someone we did not think we could live without, the time our family fell apart, or when the dream of a career came crashing down around us, or when we made the decision to leave home and move to the other side of the world in the hope of a better life. And we were given a new home and a new family. We were held by a strength beyond our own. God has done things we did not expect.

There is no God like our God, Isaiah says. With our God there is always hope. God is our Father, and we are God’s children. God is the potter, and we are the clay, the work of God’s hands. And God is not finished with us yet. God is always making of us a new creation.

We are not defined by our past. God does not remember our iniquity forever.

Isaiah and the psalmist call for God to bring hope and salvation into a troubled present: to give ear, to shine forth, to stir up might, and save. They point us toward a future when God did “give ear” to our cry Indeed, the Shepherd of Israel gave much more. God gave God’s whole self. The Lord God of hosts left the throne of the cherubim and in Christ joined the rest of us who knows what it is like to feel that God has forsaken you. God answered the demand, “Let your face shine upon us that we may be saved,” though not as anyone expected: it was in the light of a Child born in Bethlehem, the light the darkness has never overcome.

God did not end political and military oppression. God’s might was expressed in the vulnerability of a baby who grew up to die at the hands of oppressors. And that first advent we relive each year sustains us until that second advent that we anticipate each year when God will act fully and completely for our salvation.

History does not go round and round in monotonous cycles. History has a goal. And that goal is the kingdom of God where the world will be redeemed and re-created by God. The Christian story is a salvation story.

Yes, we live in a world full of wars and rumors of wars, corruption, greed, and injustice. But’s that’s only one side of it.

The Christian story reveals another side where, in the words of Eugene Peterson, “with every sunrise, grace spills across the horizon in acts of healing and words of truth. . . . Jesus opens our eyes to the world of grace and commands us to pay attention. That means we don’t go into the world each day desperately trying to hold on to things or people, panicked at everything that might weaken our grasp on those things or those people.” [5]

Rather, we open our lives in hope to the Christ who is with us, keeping awake, waiting expectantly for those times and places, great and small, where Christ breaks into our lives and our world.

Paul discovered that in Christ God is doing what Isaiah and the psalmist asked God to do, breaking into our world through the gathered community of faith, strengthened by our fellowship with Jesus, not lacking in any spiritual gift, full of hope rooted in the faithfulness of God who will see us through to the very end.

Hope is what is left when your worst fears have been realized and the future looks like a never-ending bleak mid-winter. In Advent, God’s people summon the courage and the spiritual strength to remember that the holy breaks into the daily. And that in small ways we can open our broken hearts to the healing grace of God with a willingness to be mended.

We do not lose heart; rather, we live with our hearts broken open so that compassion, caring, and reckless love of God can find a way into our hearts and the heart of the world.

Sharing Hope

This first Sunday in Advent corresponds as it often does with the celebration of Thanksgiving. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he invites us to offer thanks to God, not for material gifts, but for spiritual gifts found in the church. A reminder that we are the gathered body of Christ “intended to be a feast of abundance laid out for the sake of the world.” [6]

We have gifts to share - God’s gifts of hope and peace, joy and love. We enter the darkness of our world with whatever hope we have, sometimes hoping against hope that we can shed the light of hope.

The Cellist of Sarajevo

It was 4:00 pm on May 27th, 1992, during the siege of Sarajevo, that several mortar shells struck a group of a hundred starving people waiting in a long line in front of the only bakery in town that still had enough flour to make bread. Twenty-two people were killed and at least seventy were wounded.

The next day hungry people lined up again to beg for bread - certain they would die if they didn’t come to the bakery and convinced they could die if they did. Vedran Smailovic, a renowned local cellist, had been standing at his window the day before and saw the whole thing happen. That next day, as the people lined up again, he dressed in the black suit and white tie in which he had played every night until the opera theater was destroyed. He walked into the street carrying his cello and a chair.

Smailovic sat down in the square and, surrounded by debris and the remainders of death and the despair of the living, he began to play the mournful Albinoni’s Adagio (which you will hear in just a moment), the one music manuscript that had been found whole in the city after the carpet bombing of Dresden.

For the next 21 days (one day for each of his friends and neighbors that had died), shelling or no shelling, he came back to the square to play the Adagio in honor of the dead.

His actions inspired the novel by Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo. [7]

Galloway says he played until he felt his hope return. And most days, by the time the last few notes had faded, he was able to feel the music somehow restore his hope.

Today, where he sat, there is a monument of a man in a chair playing a cello. A monument to his refusal to surrender the hope that beauty could be reborn in the midst of a living hell.

What the cellist wanted, says Galloway, was to stop things from getting worse. And perhaps the only thing that will stop things from getting worse is people doing the things they know how to do.

What is it you know how to do that can stop things from getting worse and shed a little light of hope?

Play music.
Sit with a child.
Visit someone who is lonely.
Teach someone English or math or science.
Install clean water in a village without clean water.
Pray with someone.
Work for justice.
Be a peacemaker.

Christ: The Cellist of the World

Galloway says of one of his characters who serves as a resident of the city that he would often sit “inhaling more pain than he knew the world could hold.”

In the midst of our cities filled with violence and loneliness and fear, the Christ of Bethlehem comes as the cellist of Sarajevo and Iraq and Mumbai and Louisville. His arms are spread on a piece of carved wood, inhaling all the pain the world can hold, and he plays the music of the world’s salvation, singing hope through his tears, refusing to despair that God is shaping a new creation.

Christ, the cellist of the whole world, brings hope where there is no hope. Can you hear his music?

(Cellist plays Albinoni’s Adagio)
________________

1. Anne Tyler, Breathing Lessons, Knoff, 1988, 315
2. Scott Bader-Saye, in David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Vol.1, Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, 4
3. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers From Prison, Macmillan, 1971, 360
4. Bader-Saye, 6
5. Eugene H. Peterson, Conversations: The Message Bible with its Translator, NavPress, 2007, p.1568
6. Martin B. Copenhaver, in Bartlett and Taylor, Feasting on the Word, 18
7. Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo, Riverhead, 2008

November 9, 2008 - "The Family Cloister"

2008-11-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Children’s Sabbath
Pentecost 26
November 9, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SERIES: The New Monasticism
THE FAMILY CLOISTER

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25; Psalm 78:1-7;
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13

Adult Moment: The Family Cloister (I)

I want to ask everyone who has a child under 18 living in their home - parents, grandparent, aunt, uncle, guardian - to come down to the front for an “adult moment.”

We have spent this Fall looking at monastic spirituality as a model for our own spirituality and our life together as a congregation.

This morning I want us to think about our homes as monasteries, as family cloisters, places that nurture us as persons. One woman recently published a book entitled My Monastery is a Minivan because that’s where she spends most of her time with her kids running them from one place to another. And when she stopped to think about it, she realized some holy things happened even in her minivan.

Sometimes we may feel as if we are trapped in a cloister like a minivan or even our homes. We have duties and people we cannot escape. But I want us to take a moment together and think about how we can make our homes healthy places of growth and love for ourselves and our children. I also have a handout to give you that you can read and use as a guide. And a little later, I’m going to be talking to your kids about what they can do to help.

The Kentucky monk Thomas Merton said we are all beginners at prayer. Always we begin again. Today I want to give you that gift as parents.

No matter how old our children are, most of us look back at mistakes we’ve made and wish we could do some things over. I don’t know that any of us would want to start parenting over completely, but all of us I think would like a few do-overs. But parenting is on-the-job training.

And this morning I want you to give yourself permission to receive a fresh start, especially when it comes to some spiritual practices within your home. Your kids might think it’s a little weird. It may even seem odd to you. But if as a congregation we could support one another in making our homes a place of spiritual formation, I think we would be more satisfied with our task as parents.

Our scripture lesson this morning from the psalms commands us to teach our children the ways of God, to tell them what God has done in our lives. And they are to teach their children. The psalmist says that the purpose in teaching our children God’s commandments is so they will set their hope in God.

It can be hard to be a kid. And as you know, some things get even harder as you become an adult. It can be easy to lose hope.

(Give handout)

This handout that I’m giving you is based on a book by David Robinson, an Oregon pastor, entitled The Family Cloister: Benedictine Wisdom for the Home. Just as I have been taking The Rule of Benedict and seeking to apply it to our life as a church, Robinson has taken Benedict’s Rule and sought to apply it to the home.

I ask that you as parents talk about this together and then with your children, and perhaps even create a Rule of Life for your family.

I have been the abbot this Fall. The abbot is a symbol of Christ in a monastery. In the home you are the abbot. You represent Christ to your children.

Benedict instructs abbots to point out to the monks all that is good and holy more by example than by words.

There is no “do as I say not as I do.” But rather we say to our children, “Live as I live and learn from my mistakes.”

I encourage you Tuesday through Friday to use the daily Bible readings that follow the lectionary, the texts we will be using in worship that week. (Give them a copy). And then on Monday, talk about the previous Sunday.

And to those of you adults who do not have children living in your house, you can help in this place, in this larger family of God, teaching children in Sunday School, or loving them in the way that you talk to them, or supporting our ministries to children as you give.

Let us all take seriously scripture’s call to teach our children the ways of God.

Let’s pray.

(Pray for our children. Pray for ourselves as parents.)

Sermon for Children: The Family Cloister (II)

How many of you kids think your parents could use some help in how to be a parent? Anybody here got perfect parents? (No, there are no perfect parents. Only God is the perfect parent of us all.)

All parents need help. I’m a parent and I know I could use some help.

When we had our “adult moment” a few minutes ago I gave them some information with ideas about how they could become better parents.

Right now I want to talk with you about what you can do to help make your parents better parents, and what you can do to make your home a better place.

Anybody here feel that it’s tough to be a kid - to obey your parents, get good grades in school, clean up your room, doing chores? It is hard some times.

But I’ve been a kid (I still act like one at times) and I’m a parent right now of three children, and I can tell you that being a parent is much harder than being a kid. It really is.

That’s why I’ve given your parents some information that I hope they will choose to share with you.

What I want to ask you to do is take what they say seriously and to offer your ideas as to what can make you a better family.

Think about what you can be responsible for in your home that would help.

Let’s say for example, you’re 15 or 11, and your parents have gone crazy and now a 3-year-old lives in your house. They may need your help parenting the 3-year-old or doing things they don’t have time to do.

Or your parents may need to help take care of their parents, and you can help by doing things around the house.

It takes everybody in the family to make a house a loving home.

Your parents have a huge responsibility to take care of you. They are responsible to God for what they teach you and how they live before you. And all parents make mistakes. And this morning I’ve cut them some slack and given myself some slack, because God cuts us all some slack - it’s called grace. God forgives our mistakes, those things we have failed to do as parents and as children, and gives us a fresh start.

And this morning I want all of our families to have a fresh start. In some ways to begin again. And I want you to listen well to your parents, and I want your parents to listen to you, as each person in your family talks about how to make your family better.

Would you promise to do that for me? All right. Let’s pray.

(Pray for our parents. Pray for ourselves as children.)

Handout to Parents

Based on the book by David Robinson,
The Family Cloister: Benedictine Wisdom for the Home

FAMILY SPIRITUALITY

The family as the primary place for the shaping of a child - physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

We are sometimes tempted to leave all spiritual formation to the church.

But I want to encourage you as parents to take on some of that responsibility yourself.

As parents we are called to guide their spiritual development.

Ask yourself:

What kind of person do I want my child to become? And what am I doing to help shape that kind of person?

Am I teaching them they can have whatever they want? Or that there are limits?

Is their money/allowance for them to spend however they want? Or should we provide guidance and limitations on what they buy?

How are we embodying the simplicity of Jesus?

A good place to start with the answer as to what kind of person you want your child to become is found in Galatians 5 and the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. And seek to teach them and guide them in those ways, allowing the Spirit to nurture those things in our children. And it begins by embodying them ourselves.

Teach them Benedict’s ladder of humility we talked about a few weeks ago (September 28 sermon. There are copies in the office and the narthex and online.)

Read the Bible daily together. Tuesdays through Fridays you may want to use the lectionary texts we will be using in worship that week. And then on Mondays talk about what they heard at church the previous day.

FAMILY DISCIPLINE

Every family needs rules and guidelines, knowing what is expected of them.

When we ignore the mistakes and poor choices of our children we are like a gardener ignoring weeds in the garden.

Work on a set of guidelines for your family. This could be something you could sit down together and work out. As a monastery has a Rule of Life, so could our families.

Work on ways to share responsibility in your home.

Limit time on phone, TV, computer, ipod for children and parents.

FAMILY HEALTH

It matters how we treat our bodies.
Pay attention to your diet and eat well.
Exercise as a family if possible.

FAMILY LIFE TOGETHER

Have a family schedule
Do stuff together
Play together
Talking about your life together, even your finances and your budget

FAMILY HOSPITALITY

Shape the home as a hospitable place for each other

Shape the home as a place of hospitality for others, making others (strangers, those in need) welcome in your home.

Make your home a welcome place for those children and parents whose families are broken.

FAMILY GROWTH

Understanding the home as a place of spiritual formation.
Are we growing more Christlike in our home?
Learn to confess to one another and to forgive one another.
Are we growing in our service and love to one another?
What can we do in our families to grow stronger and healthier?

Make some commitments as a family in all these areas.

September 28, 2008 - "Climbing Benedict's Ladder of Humility"

2008-11-04T16:43:00.000-08:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 20
September 28, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SERIES: The New Monasticism

CLIMBING BENEDICT’S LADDER OF HUMILITY

Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16;
Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32

We continue on our search to learn from monastic spirituality and the Rule of St. Benedict, thinking of the church as an abbey and monastery and ourselves as monks and nuns in the world.

Today the subject is humility. The longest chapter in St. Benedict’s Rule is on humility. Of all the words that he uses to describe the proper posture for a life that becomes the gospel, humility is the one word, the one trait that he comes back to again and again.

Benedict bases his writings on the words of Jesus who said,“Whoever exalt themselves shall be humbled, and whoever humbles themselves shall be exalted.”

The root of humility is the Latin word humus, which means “soil” or “earth.” To be humble is to be down-to-earth. It is an acknowledgment of our connectedness to the earth.

The temptation for Adam and Eve was to give up being of the humus - humble and human - and to become gods, the ultimate act of pride. This lack of humility and humanity was their downfall. Their story is played out in the life of every one of us, as people who struggle to be down-to-earth and avoid the temptation to act as if we were the divine center of the universe. If you examine human interactions that go wrong, whether in bitter arguments or wars, there is usually somewhere a lack of humility and an excess of arrogance. Humility is about our struggle to be fully human. [1]

Jesus is the model. In our text for today, Paul calls us to have the mind that was in Christ, who being in the form of God emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, humbling himself, becoming obedient even to the point of death. And because of his humility and obedience, God exalted him.

Humility is synonymous with Christlikeness. Jesus calls us to learn of him for he is gentle and humble of heart. The more we desire to become like Christ, the more we grow in humility.

Benedict’s Ladder of Humility

Benedict talks about humility using the image of a ladder. Drawn from the image of Jacob who had a dream of a ladder upon which angels descended and ascended, Benedict talks about ascending the ladder of humility

Benedict teaches us that “getting ahead” and “being on top” are not the marks of real human achievement. He says that in the spiritual life up is down and down is up: ‘We descend by exaltation and we ascend by humility.” The goals and values of the spiritual life, in other words, are just plain different from the goals and values we’ve been taught by the world around us. Winning, owning, having, consuming, and controlling are not the high posts of the spiritual life. [2]

There are 12 steps on Benedict’s ladder of humility. Written in the sixth century, you could call it history’s first 12-step method of spiritual growth. I have incorporated the twelve, narrowing them down to seven. I do not have time to do them all justice, but perhaps there will be enough here to help you see what authentic humility looks like.

It is important to realize that as we climb the ladder, the steps on the ladder do not cause progress, but measure it. Humility is an interior quality. [3]

The foot of the ladder is the beginning of the spiritual journey. And that’s where we start.

1. REVERENCE

The first step is reverence: to keep “the reverence of God always before our eyes” (Ps 36:2). It’s about living with a profound sense of awe and our whole being possessed by a deep reverence.

Benedict says the humble fear the Lord, and do not become elated over their good deeds; they judge it is the Lord’s power, not their own, that brings about the good in them. They praise the Lord working in them, and say with the psalmist: “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Thy name alone give the glory” (Ps 115:1) [4]

The first rung of the spiritual life is to recognize that God is God and we are not.

2. SURRENDERING OF OUR WILL TO GOD’S WILL

The second step is about surrendering our will to God’s will. The reverence toward God that marks the first step helps break our addiction to self-will and opens us up to an authentic receptivity of God. Benedictine sister Joan Chittister says, “If God is my center and my end, then I must accept the will of God, knowing that in it lies the fullness of life for me.” [5]

Benedict says of this second step: we love not our own will nor take pleasure in the satisfaction of our desires; rather we shall imitate by our actions that saying of Christ’s: “I have come not to do my own will, but the will of the One who sent me” (John 6:38).

In monastic language this is called the step of obedience. And it requires us to ask: “Who is my master?” with the realization that we cannot serve two masters.

This step is about renunciation of self-will. The dominance of self-expression in our contemporary culture makes this step sound strange.

Pride is so rampant in our culture through our desire to control; to control my day, my future, the other people in my life, to make sure that the world is put together the way I want it.

This step of humility is to pray with Jesus: “Lord, not my will but thine be done.” It requires an acceptance that the will of God is always to our benefit.

Our deepest spiritual experience is to feel utterly dependent on God and to want to submit ourselves to the divine will. The mystics talk about a point at which to soul becomes absorbed in God and seems no longer to have an autonomous existence. It is the goal of contemplation: a union of ourselves with God.

Obedience on the ladder of humility is the ability to submit ourselves to the wisdom of another. It involves a humility that acknowledges our incapacity to see the whole picture.

In a monastery this obedience to Christ is reflected in a monk’s obedience to the abbot. And the abbot’s task is not to impose his own will or to dominate others but to be a spokesperson for Christ. [6] That is why they are chosen carefully.

Joan Chittister says, “It is to realize that we are not the last word, the final answer, the clearest insight into anything. We have one word among many to contribute to the mosaic of life, one answer of many answers, one insight out of multiple perspectives. Humility lies in learning to listen to the words, directions, and insights of [others who just may be] a voice of Christ for me now.” [7]

This step brings us face to face with our struggle for power. It makes us face an authority outside of ourselves.

This is not a military obedience, but rather the obedience required for a family or community to be a place of love. This is a concrete way of setting aside our desires and is actually a profound expression of freedom. [8]

3. PATIENT ENDURANCE

The third step up the ladder is patient endurance. It is to embrace suffering knowing what Paul said, that in all things we are more than conquerors, overcomers, because of Christ who so greatly loved us.

It is with the mind of Christ that we learn to quietly embraces patience. We train our minds to look beyond present pain to ultimate realities.

This step is about holding on when things do not go our way. It is to realize that all things should be dealt with patiently, that overhasty responses are rarely helpful, even in a crisis. Patience is not about grinning and bearing things we hate. Patience is the attempt to live out in a positive frame of mind the difficulties that come from trying to love other people. [9]

4. RADICAL SELF-HONESTY / CONFESSION

Step four is the call to radical self-honesty and confession, refusing to conceal who we are, but having someone to whom you can humbly confess sinful thoughts that enter the heart, or any wrongs committed in secret.

Joan Chittister writes of this radically honest confession saying: The spiritual heart is a heart that has exposed itself and all its weaknesses and all its pain and all its struggles to one who has the insight, the discernment, the care to call us out of our worst selves to the heights to which we aspire. The struggles we hide, psychologists tell us, are the struggles that consume us. Benedict’s instruction, centuries before an entire body of research arose to confirm it, is that we must cease to wear our masks, stop pretending to be perfect, and accept the graces of growth that can come to us from the wise and gentle hearts of people around us. [10]

Confession, being honest about the negative parts of one’s life, can be a very positive experience. It is positive because it lets light into dark places. Far from making us feel guilty, admitting to a wrong we have done releases us from our guilt and enables us to move forward.

Another’s acceptance in the face of our confession may ease the way for me to see and accept myself as I am.

Mindfulness of our faults can be a source of joy because it reminds us of God’s mercy and how much God loves us. Humility’s distinguishing mark is a deep awareness of our own faults, a lack of complaint about the faults of others, and a constant singing of God’s praise in thankfulness for mercy. [11]

Humility is to be constantly aware of our moral fragility. [12]

This gets to the heart of humility, which is living in the truth, the truth within oneself, our relationships with others and with God. It is not about saying you are worse than you are or denying your gifts and abilities, but about facing the truth of who you are, the truth that we are incomplete without God.

Humility is the opposite of artificiality. Humility is the ability to see ourselves as God does.

Humility teaches us that our gifts are not of our own making. So we do not boast about them.

The gifts we receive are held in trust for the whole human race. They are not for ourselves alone. They are given for sharing. To deny one’s gifts is to deny others the benefit of sharing in their fruits. It is not humility but a waste.

What if John Claypool had said, “I really can’t preach,” and decided to sell insurance instead? That would not have been humility, but a tragic denial of the truth of who God created him to be.

So far we’ve climbed four steps up the ladder of humility: reverence, surrender, patience, and self-honesty.

5. YIELDING TO OTHERS / CONTENTMENT

The fifth step has to do with contentment that expresses itself in a yielding to others. It is to reach that place where we are content with what we’ve been given and content with our place in life. It is the place where we value others more than ourselves and give ourselves in service to others.

Benedict writes: “They should each try to be the first to show respect to the other” (Rom 12:10), supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weakness of body or behavior, and earnestly competing in obedience to one another. No [Christians] are to pursue what they judge better for themselves, but instead, what they judge better for someone else. [13]

This resonates with our text for today where Paul says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.”

The humility expressed at this stage has to do with the lowering of our self-importance. It is reaching a mature place where we do not have to control people and events, especially in the community of faith. God wants us to grow out of the immaturity of self-importance. [14]

Humility is not the same as a low self-image. We need to be taught self-acceptance and an appropriate level of self-love. It’s about demolishing defenses and admitting the truth of my condition.

Humility brings a sense of solidarity with other human beings. Humility joins us with the rest of the human race. It is pride which causes us to believe we are not like others.

Humility’s opposite is a constant preoccupation with self. As we embrace humility, we realize we have nothing to prove, no need for big ambitions or positions. [15] The humble do not need lies or evasions to inflate their important in front of others or to buttress their self-esteem.

Humility is to be satisfied with a lower place for the purpose of giving honor to another. It’s about putting the self down and becoming good community and family members. [16]

Insofar as our lives are dedicated to pleasing ourselves, then they are doomed to frustration. The real delight in life comes from the acceptance of realities other than one’s own, especially the reality of the other person’s needs.

Humility means allowing one’s self to be formed by others, especially those in the faith community. [17] Think about those in this church or other churches have shaped you. Especially the two people whose lives we are remembering yesterday and tomorrow, Ed Thornton and Fay Leach.

One of the sages said: “I never met anyone in whom I failed to recognize something superior to myself: if the person was older, I said this one has done more good than I; if younger, I said this one has sinned less; if richer, I said this one has been more charitable; if poorer, I said this one has suffered more; if wiser, I honored their wisdom; and if not wiser, I judged their faults more lightly.” Community is the place where we come to honor the world. [18]

To be humble is to welcome wisdom from any direction, to open ourselves to it, to see criticism as an occasion for growth, to see the value of continued evaluation. [19]

It is better to ask the way ten times than to take the wrong road once, a Jewish proverb reads. This step of humility tells us to learn from what has been learned before us, to value the truths taught by others, to seek out wisdom and enshrine it in our hearts, to attach ourselves to teachers so that we do not make the mistake of becoming our own blind guides. It takes a great deal of time to learn all the secrets of life by ourselves. Our living communities have a great deal to teach us. [20]

Important, and often difficult, is to let go of my ambition and self-esteem, my self-assertiveness and self-sufficiency, my wish to be just a little different from everyone else. If through all this I learn to deal with my own limitations then I shall be able to deal with those of other people.

Step five: a yielding to others.

6. RESTRAINT OF SPEECH

The sixth step of humility calls for restraint of speech. The Rule says: We control our tongue and remain silent. As it is written: “The wise are known by few words.”

A good monk’s sermon on humility would be less than five minutes, I’m sure. So I’m not being a good monk or very humble this morning. But we’ve almost reached the top of the ladder.

Michael Casey writes, “Obedience and patience are humility in action, silence is humility in word.” [21]

Ecclesiastes says there is a time to speak and time to be silent. Humility is knowing when and erring on the side of silence.

Silence is not a virtuous end in itself. It is about the ability of silence to nurture the interior life.

Benedict considers chatter that simply fills empty time as a waste. Casey also says that nonstop talking can be a means of insulating oneself from the shock of the real. And that excessive conversation expresses and reinforces a lack of personal discipline in our life. It restricts our capacity to listen. Talking too much often convinces us of the correctness of our own conclusions. [22]

Benedict knows that people can waste a huge amount of time and energy complaining, grumbling, and gossiping maliciously. Benedict hates grumbling and forbids it above all other vices.

Benedict also warns of laughter, the kind of laughter that pokes fun, a mockery that undermines the honor of a person. None of this has any place in a good family, a good community, or a good workplace.

7. INTEGRATION AND TRANSFORMATION

The final step is a total humility in all that is said and done, in body and in heart. Casey calls it integration and transformation, a place where the outer and inner person are one. At the top of the ladder is the goal of perfect love that casts out fear, a place where there is delight in virtue and no fear.

With such humility, “there will be nothing left to fear - not God’s wrath, not the loss of human respect, not the absence of control, not the achievements of others greater than our own.” [23]

It is a call for the humility to say I need to change.

CONCLUSION

So there it is, the ladder of humility: reverence toward God, the surrendering of our will; obedience; the patient embrace of suffering amid hardships; self-honesty; contentment with what one is given; valuing others more than self; submission to others; speaking gently and with modesty; and the integration of transformation in a life of love - these are the steps that lead to humility according to Benedict.

It is about living in the truth of who we are. It’s about the capacity to receive the grace to change. It is to realize that we go up only by going down. As one writer put it: humility is a proper sense of self in a universe of wonders. [24]

So let us work out our salvation with fear and trembling, with a holy seriousness, remembering that it is God at work in us, enabling us both to will and to work for God’s pleasure.

___________________________

1. Abbot Christopher Jamison, Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life, Liturgical Press, 2006, 95
2. Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict: Insights For the Ages, Crossroad, 1992, 63
3. Michael Casey, A Guide to Living in the Truth, Liguori, 2001, 43
4. St. Benedict, The Rule of St. Benedict, ed. Timothy Fry, Vintage Spiritual Classics, 1998, Prologue, 29, 30
5. Chittister, 66
6. Casey, 100
7. Chittister, 66-67
8. Jamison, 102
9. Jamison, 102-103
10. Chittister, 68
11. Jamison, 107-108
12. Casey, 77
13. St. Benedict, Chapter 72
14. Casey, 63
15. Andy Freeman and Pete Greig, Punk Monk: New Monasticism and the Ancient Art of Breathing, Regal, 2007, 114
16. Joan Chittister, Wisdom Distilled From the Daily, HarperOne, 1991, 166-167
17. Casey, 157
18. Chittister, The Rule of Benedict, 95
19. Ibid., 158
20. Ibid., 71
21. Casey, 159
22. Casey, 172-174
23. Chittister, The Rule of Benedict, 74
24. Ibid., 62

October 19, 2008 - "Holding Lightly: A Theology of Enough"

2008-11-04T16:41:00.000-08:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 23
October 19, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SERIES: The New Monasticism

HOLDING LIGHTLY: A THEOLOGY OF ENOUGH

Exodus 33:12-23; Psalm 99; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Matthew 22:15-22

Wayne Ward announced at our noon Bible Study class last Wednesday: “Pastor, I’m doing well with my vow of celibacy!” I don’t know if it was our discussion on rest or the sexuality of Jesus that prompted the remark.

I congratulated him and told him that this Sunday he would be given the opportunity to take a vow of poverty. But I quickly corrected myself and said, “What am I thinking, Wayne? You lived your life as a seminary professor. You took the vow of poverty a long time ago.”

I have heard several interesting remarks from you this fall as we have taken a look into monastic spirituality.

David Cook asked me a few weeks ago, “How’s life in the hood?” referring to the hood on my alb.

Others have wondered when I was going to wear the hood. Which caused others to fear I might then look like a member of the klan.

Someone asked me last Sunday if they should call me “monk” or “brother.” I said I was actually trying to serve as abbot. They said that didn’t sound too humble. And I said, “Well, I’ve been a pope all my life. As I see it, I’ve taken three steps down past cardinal and bishop in order to become an abbot, so I think that’s quite a humble move!

John Birkimer told me how the Solidarity Sunday School Class has been studying the monastic tradition this fall. He said he has actually read The Rule of Benedict and he noted that the qualifications for abbot are quite high. And they are. I told him not to take The Rule too literally. John can be so literal when it comes to matters of faith.

Today we are reflecting upon our relationship with money and possessions through the lens of scripture and how monasticism has embodied scripture in its practice of ownership.

This is the time of year when we consider our financial commitments to the church’s ministry and our life together. You are encouraged to bring your pledge card to worship next week, preferably filled out, and place it in the offering plate as an act of worship. If you need help filling it out, call me.

This season of commitment is not just about how much money we will give to the church next year, but is a time when we all are given the opportunity to reflect upon our priorities as they relate to money and possessions.

It is no secret that we are in a time of global economic turmoil. One might think it a terrible time to make pledges, but I think the opposite may be true. In times like these we are almost forced to evaluate our relationship with money and possessions. As people of faith it can be a time for us to step back from our culture’s message regarding money and possessions and see what scripture has to say about them. When things are going well, we usually don’t think about the differences in the messages between culture and scripture. When things are not going so well, we are often led to think and reflect and pray more about our lives and our priorities.

Paul begins his letter to the Thessalonians thanking them for their partnership in Paul’s ministry, which no doubt included financial help. He also spoke of their turning away from gods, which scripture often does. And it may be that in these days we are being called to turn from the gods of materialism and capitalism and financial idolatry, making sure our trust is not in Wall Street or the government but in the God who calls us to live together in a global community characterized by simplicity and generosity.

In our culture of over-consumption and greed I think we are being called to “a theology of enough.”

It is a theology that calls us to realize there is enough for everyone. And everyone receives enough when we share what we have with others.

It is a theology that calls us to realize that we have enough and we have to curb our collection of things and stop living beyond our means, borrowing more than we will ever be able to pay back.

It is an important word for us in a day when greed is no longer considered a deadly sin but a virtue. Perhaps we are rethinking that these days as we see where unchecked greed has gotten us.

Did you see this week that our national debt in excess of ten trillion dollars is so large it would require $86,000 per household to pay back! We have become an over-indulgent nation living beyond our means. We have lost a sense of enough.

We need to be reminded that growth in productivity and economy is not an inherent virtue. We live in a world of limited resources, and it is foolish for us to live as if it were otherwise.

Benedict writes in chapter 39 of his Rule: Nothing is so inconsistent with the life of any Christian as overindulgence. The Rule of Benedict devotes itself to the virtue of moderation. We are called to simplicity of lifestyle and generosity of heart, engaging in compassionate sharing with the needy of the world. Benedict calls us to remember that in that early Christian community, “Distribution was made as each had need” (Acts 4:35).

There are two words I want us to consider for a moment. They are likely not your favorite two words. But they are central to the gospel and monastic life. The first is renunciation. The second is detachment.

First, renunciation: the giving up of things. Not a popular word or activity in American culture. But at the heart of renunciation is giving things up in order to gain something greater. It’s about holding on to nothing beyond the necessary. [1] Renunciation in itself is not holy, but it creates a necessary space where the holiness of God can dwell and can reorder our lives.

Related to renunciation is the word detachment. Material things can be accepted as gifts of God, but they are also to be regarded with detachment. It is wrong to value or enjoy things, but we must not cling to them or guard them with our lives.

Benedict says that material things are sacramental. They are symbols that reveal the beauty and the goodness of their creator. Benedict says the monk will regard all utensils and goods of the monastery as sacred vessels of the altar. His is a very down-to-earth spirituality. There is no escape here into some interior spiritual life disconnected from the world.” [2]

But there must be a separation between who we are and what we possess.

I would call it “responsible ownership,” which is a common ownership

Benedict’s understanding of poverty was not like that of St. Francis. It was not a giving up of all things. In fact, poverty is not undertaken as one of the Benedictine vows. Benedict understood poverty as the common ownership of all things. By entering the monastery you are vowing to share with the community. Martin Luther said that goods are not goods unless they can be shared.

Benedict says that each monk is to receive all things that are necessary, but no private ownership. Private ownership was to be relinquished and every possession regarded as gift, received in order to be shared with others. No one owns anything privately; all is on temporary loan. And the reason is because community breaks down when “mine” replaces “ours.” [3]

Deprivation is not a Benedictine ideal. On the contrary, the point of Benedictine life is to live simply, joyfully, and fully. Benedict wants the monastic to have enough, to have it from the community and to avoid hoarding, accumulating, consuming, and conniving. [4]

Benedictine monks do “possess” their own clothes, alarm clocks, books, and other stuff. But they do so as a steward. In other words, the community is to benefit from what the monk has as his own. One group of nuns writes their names in their books, preceded by the phrase “for the use of.” Perhaps that is an invisible stamp we should put on all our possessions: a house, a car, a book, clothing. [5]

I think it’s stamped on the front of Glen Bellou’s truck. Glen’s story is shared in Accent, the missions material for CBF this Fall. Glen’s truck is used almost daily to take people to the doctor, to move furniture for someone, and to even make trips for a handful of people who have recently moved to South Dakota. Glen would have made Benedict proud!

Monasteries own cars that can be checked out for use. Perhaps we could do the same. Not just with cars but with other things - to hold them in common - items we need occasionally but do not need to own - things that we only use once or twice a year, we could share them with each other. My wife has a few tools at home in her tool box that I’m sure she would be willing to share and some she would like to borrow as she fixes things around the house.

Common ownership is a way of saying we are only stewards of all that we have. It all belongs to God and is meant to be shared. That is why we give a portion of our money to a common collection: to acknowledge that all we have belongs to God and together we can do more for others than we can do alone.

There is such a thing as responsible ownership - if we “hold lightly” what we own [6] and make all things available to any person in need. The Rule teaches us to cling to nothing, to hold everything - even the best of holy things - with a relaxed grasp. [7]

We are taught in our culture to think that to privately own our possessions and to do what we want with what we have is the defining mark of our freedom. Richard Rohr reminds us that saying no to yourself is the beginning of freedom. It is slavery to be driven by our need to possess, which in turn makes us anxious about protecting what is ours.

John Skinner says monasticism is not a removal from the world, but is instead about a separation from that which divides us - separation from wealth, from status, from exclusive relationships. [8]

St. Francis urged his brothers to rid themselves of land or possessions seeing that it only divided. Possessions are often the causes of disputes and sometimes violence. If we owned them we would be obliged to carry arms to defend them - and to do that would hinder us in loving God and our neighbor. Are there things that you hold on to and cherish that divide you from others? What things, what possessions, do we allow to get in the way of our love for God and those around us? [9] When those very things can be used and given to express our love for God and those around us.

Donald Nicholl says: “Once we realize that we own absolutely nothing . . . a weight is lifted from us and our hearts grow lighter . . . at least we have made a true beginning when we can gaze around at all the possessions, qualities and capacities that are supposed to be ours and recognize that they do not really belong to us.” [10]

In our gospel lesson for today we encounter a conversation that we are told is meant to trap Jesus. He is asked if God’s people should pay taxes to the emperor. Saying yes to taxes is never popular, especially when given to an oppressive emperor like Caesar. Saying no to taxes would make him guilty of treason for which he could be prosecuted. Jesus confounds them and confounds us with his response. After taking a coin in his hand with Caesar’s image upon it, he says, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s.”

This text has been used to justify the notion that faith in God has nothing to do with politics. But a closer reading of the text and of scripture as a whole, particularly the prophets, reveals that God calls governments to justice and compassion and peace and dignity for all persons.

Caesar’s coin bears the image of Caesar and so belongs to Caesar. Human beings, on the other hand, bear the image of God and so belong to God. We may pay taxes but we do not belong to the government. We are all God’s children, bearers of the divine image, and therefore belong to God. Our ultimate allegiance is not to race, nation, or political party. All that we are and all that we have belongs to God.

That is what monasticism seeks to remind us when it calls us to share all that we have with one another. Because ultimately nothing belongs to us. It all belongs to God and is to be used for God’s purposes.

Dennis Okholm tells of the time several years ago when Apple began producing personal computers. He said, “One day while a friend prepared a meal for me in her kitchen I was raving about the features of the latest Mac that I coveted. Finally she stopped peeling potatoes, looked up, and asked, ‘And how will this serve the kingdom of God?’ I never purchased that computer and I thanked her for her gentle reminder.” [11]

Monasticism calls us to a virtuous poverty that has one asking again and again throughout life: Do I really need this? Is more really better? [12] And how can I use what has been given me to serve the kingdom of God?

Monasticism calls us to heart of Christian discipleship, which is, in the words of Abba Antony from the third century: to prefer nothing in the world above the love of Christ. To hold lightly to what we’ve been given and in gratitude to God live simply and generously.

___________________

1. Linus Mundy, A Retreat with Benedict and Bernard: Seeking God Alone - Together, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1998, 82
2. Esther de Waal, Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict, Liturgical Press, 2001, 104
3. Elizabeth Canham, Heart Whispers: Benedictine Wisdom For Today, Abingdon, 1999, 42-43
4. Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict: Insights For the Ages, Crossroad, 1992, 147
5. Dennis Okholm, Monk Habits For Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants, Brazos, 2008, 46-47
6. Lonni Collins Pratt and Father Daniel Holman, Benedict’s Way: An Ancient Monk’s Insights For a Balanced Life, Loyola Press, 2000, 103
7. Joan Chittister, Wisdom Distilled From the Daily, HarperOne, 1991, 163
8. Andy Freeman and Pete Greig, Punk Monk: New Monasticism and the Ancient Art of Breathing, Regal, 2007, 111
9. Freeman and Greig, 111
10. As quoted in LC, 73
11. Okholm, 52
12. Mundy, 89-90

October 26, 2008 - "The House That Love Is Building"

2008-11-04T16:39:00.000-08:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 23
October 26, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SERIES: The New Monasticism

THE HOUSE THAT LOVE IS BUILDING

Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46

In a recently published parable of the church, [1] the chairperson of a church council received a letter which read:

Dear Tim,

I have been observing you and your season of leadership at [the church] for many years and thought it important to write to you at this time. I’ve watched your hard work in guiding [the church] out of a period of turmoil and challenge. You have endured a great deal and persevered with energy in creating a level of excitement and activity within the church. For all this I commend you and the other leaders who have worked with you.

I’m writing you to bring something important to your attention. You have lost your first love. You and [the church] have drifted away from the love of God and one another as your first priority . . . If this serious situation is not turned around, it will destroy the church’s credibility.

Fear not, Tim. All is not lost. I am writing to encourage you to lead a change that, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, can be accomplished. If you accept the challenge to restore love into the life of the church by reviving . . . passion and humility . . . you and [the church] will receive blessings beyond your imagination. The way back must start with you.

This letter is sent in love as always, with faith that what is required can be done.

(Signed) Your Truest Friend

Immediately, Tim thought it sounded just like the letter Jesus had written to the church at Ephesus in the Book of Revelation telling them that they too had lost their first love. But he also didn’t think too highly of anonymous letters, and so he tossed it in the wastebasket.

The letter was followed by a phone call by a fairly new member of the congregation, informing Tim that she had decided to look for another church. When he asked why she said it was several things really. She was known in the community for possessing incredible gifts that seem to be ignored at the church. She felt as if she had fallen through the cracks and did not sense the warm inclusion she did with the initial welcome to the congregation. She said, “I really want my church to feel like a place where I’m welcome and where people are genuinely glad to see me.” She said, “The bottom line is that this church isn’t exactly the most loving place in town. It doesn’t make me feel closer to God. Sometimes I go away feeling farther away from God than I did before I arrived.”

Tim apologized on behalf of the church and promised he would look very carefully into what she had said and would do everything he could to create a church where she would feel more welcome. He invited her to give them another chance. She said she would think about it and thanked him for how kind he had been to her.

As they hung up, Tim went to the wastebasket and retrieved the letter. He sat back in his chair. Wow! In one day, to read that his church had drifted away from the love of God and one another, and to hear that his church was not exactly the most loving place in town stabbed him right in the heart. Because he knew in his gut it was true. That amidst all the good things about his church they had lost the love that unites and defines them.

That letter could be sent and that phone call could be made to churches all over the world.

At the heart of the letter and phone call is the church’s failure to focus on the heart of the matter, what Jesus called the greatest commandment: to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

As I read that story I wondered how true it is of us. Have we lost our first love? Have we drifted away from the love of God and neighbor as the heart of our life together? Amidst all the changes this congregation has endured, what is it that holds us together?

I truly cannot think of another congregation that has been faced with the number of changes and the significant scope of such changes as has this congregation. It is truly astounding. The whole identity of the church rooted in its relationship to the seminary, then watching the seminary change so drastically, and over 40 families with connection to the seminary moving on from this congregation to other places, not to mention the hundreds of students each year who found a church home here. Then a period of significant transition where we have been seeking to live into a new way of doing ministry. And then in February 2007, the gift of over 150 Karen Christians from the other side of the world come and seek to make their home with us. All of these things and more, the impact of which is hard to actually put into words - it’s enough to spin your head around a few times.

And yet, we’re still here. What is it that is holding us together? I’m not sure exactly, but I think there is something to be learned from that modern parable of the church with which I began. For within that parable lies the truth about every church including our own. Whether in a time of struggle or great success, the integrity of a congregation, what holds it together, is compromised if the uniting cord is not woven together by the love of God and the love of neighbor. The great commandment of Jesus must always and forever be the center of our life together.

And you know, there’s freedom and joy in that truth. Because it means you don’t have to be the biggest and the best at everything to be a successful congregation. The most important thing is to do everything possible to be the most loving place in town.

As all baseball fans know, this year brought to a close baseball’s most hallowed sanctuary, Yankee Stadium. As a beloved Red Sox fan, I cannot but acknowledge that Yankee Stadium (even more than Fenway Park and Wrigley Field) has been home to more baseball greats than any other place in the history of the game: Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Reggie Jackson, and the list could go on. But one player stands out above them all. Thanks to the unforgivable stupidity of Red Sox ownership in 1918, for $100,000 the Sox traded Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, and did not win another World Series for 86 years. In those 86 years, the Yankees won 26 World Series, and Yankee Stadium became known as “The House That Ruth Built.”

In fact, until Boston won the World Series in 2004, it was believed they lived under “The Curse” for having traded the Babe to the Yankees. But “The House That Ruth Built” is closed now, and the Yankees are moving into the 1.3 billion dollar “House That Steinbrenner (the longtime Yankee owner) Built.”

The church is always “The House That Love is Building.” If anybody or anything else tries to build a church, it will never be what it was meant to be.

In First Corinthians chapter 13 we are told that without love all noble efforts are basically pointless and useless. However, with love, even the smallest of things can be great and profoundly useful. The point is that love must guide the lives and relationships of the church community. It must be love that unifies the church, love on the inside as members love one another, love on the outside as we make the love of Jesus known to the world, all of which is bound together by our love for God and God’s love for us.

How is love building this house?

I thought about you yesterday as my family and I paid a visit to a llama farm owned by the doctor who diagnosed my son Ryan’s heart condition when he was less than an hour old, and quite literally saved his life, riding in the ambulance with him from Baptist East to Kosair Hospital. To see her again, along with two other doctors who kept him alive through his first weeks of life, was yet another reminder to me of how you kept us (my family and I) alive during those days - feeding us, praying for us, loving us. And the way you continue to do so, rejoicing with us in his wonderful health and hyperactivity and high decibel vocal cords. Love was and is building a house for our life together.

And stories like that of how you have loved and cared for one another in times of crisis could be told countless times over.

There are the stories lived weekly of Bob Hieb and Tom Scott Jr. here at the church almost every Saturday repairing and renovating and building this house with great love.

And then every Sunday morning and afternoon, Allen Bartlett and Andy Bates and Glen Bellou and David Graves and Lewis Miller and Brent Williams picking up and taking home those who want to come to church with us but are in need of transportation. They are laying bricks of love.

And every week, Judy Johnson is sending a card or baking a cake to someone who is celebrating or someone is need of a helping hand. Bricks of love.

And Karen Scott organizing our exploding nursery every week, making sure children, from the first weeks of life, know that there is place for them in this House of Love.

And Nar K’Paw, spending almost every waking hour translating English and Karen for somebody all over this city, seeking to make life better for his people, and showing us all what it means to love. Brick by brick.

And Moneai Schnur who writes 5-10 notes every Wednesday night to those who are sick and grieving. Laying bricks of love.

And Steve Clark and Annette Ellard who inspire me every week with their tireless brick laying on behalf of refugees, pushing landlords to do the right thing, working with school boards, accompanying people to the hospital and sitting them through the middle of the night.

And like the hundreds of people who helped Ruth build Yankee Stadium, there are many others around here who go unnoticed, but who, brick by brick, are building this house of love.

In the giving of yourself and your resources, you provide space and opportunity for loving God through worship and spiritual formation. You provide space and opportunity to love our neighbors through a growing ESL ministry on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And for tutoring young people in the youth room on Wednesday afternoons (work that local school teachers and administrators have noticed).

In your giving you help build Habitat houses throughout this city.

In your giving you support mission work all over the world and in our own community, feeding the hungry, providing heat for the poor and rent for the needy.

In giving you support a ministerial staff seeking to guide and serve this congregation to be the church God is calling us to be.

I am so pleased (and I know many of you are also, because I have heard you say so) that Jason Crosby and Andrea Woolley have joined our ministerial staff. They are doing wonderful work. I appreciate your willingness to call them, and I pray we will all give generously to support them and the work they are doing as part of our mission together.

When you give of yourself in love and service, this House of God grows larger in ways that cannot be measured.

And when you give your money to the ministry of this congregation you are doing much more than meeting a line item on a budget. You are building a house of love that is changing lives in ways we may never know.

As I ask you to give and pledge generously and sacrificially to the ministry of this congregation, I ask you to do so out of love for God and neighbor and world. Let this church continue to be “The House That Love is Building.” Even more so than it has in the past.

In a return to the modern parable with which I began the sermon, Tim decided that once the pastor returned from his sabbatical he would go public with the letter. He did and together they committed themselves a congregation to become the most loving place in town.

I wonder if we would make that same commitment. Continuing to do the wonderful things that are being done. But being extra careful that every word we say, ever look we give, every thing we do will be motivated by the desire to love God and one another.

Abbot Bernard, a Benedictine monk himself, is noted for using a metaphor that describes a community built by love. He calls us to see our lives more like a reservoir than a canal. Because the canal simultaneously pours out what it receives while the reservoir retains the water until it is filled and then overflows without loss to itself. Bernard was telling us to reservoirs, all of us receiving the love of God, holding on to it, letting it flow into every area of one’s life, and all the while letting it overflow into our family and community and church and all we meet! [2]

The church as reservoir. With a water reservoir just down the road from us, it might be helpful every time we drive by to think of our lives and our church and who we are called to be: a place where God’s love overflows into the community, and where we truly live as The House That Love is Building.

But it all begins in the reservoir behind me. The waters of baptism. In those waters we hear the words we cannot live without - that we are God’s beloved. And there we are bathed in the waters of God’s love. From there as we rise to walk in newness of life, dripping wet, we carry the water of God’s love with us, overflowing from our lives into the lives of others.

In this house of God, much love as been shared and expressed as our church family has been transformed in recent months with the addition of our Karen brothers and sisters. One Sunday a few months ago, David Cook was teaching in the Karen Sunday School Class and the idea came to him to create a prayer tapestry which you are about to see. (If you want to ahead and bring that up.) The names included on this tapestry are the names of Karen family members who are still in the refugee camps or in Burma or in other parts of the world. They are our neighbors too. And they are a part of the house God’s love is building. And as we enter into prayer this day we include these names that are before us.

The reservoir continues to overflow. Thanks be to God.
_______________________

1. Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges, The Most Loving Place in Town: A Modern Day Parable For the Church, Thomas Nelson, 2008
2. Linus Mundy, A Retreat with Benedict and Bernard: Seeking God Alone - Together, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1998, 50

October 12, 2008 - "A Prayer-Shaped Life"

2008-11-04T16:36:00.000-08:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 22
October 12, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SERIES: The New Monasticism

A PRAYER-SHAPED LIFE

Exodus 32:1-14; Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23;
Philippians 4:1-9; Matthew 22:1-14

Anybody here searching for some peace?

These are anxiety-ridden days. I know what Paul said in our text for today, but it is difficult to refrain from anxiety and to keep our minds only on what is excellent and honorable and good and true. It helps to know that Paul was no stranger to hard economic times and difficult life-situations. We may not always like what Paul has to say, but someone who lived a life like his, full of incredible hardship, we at least must listen to what he has to say, because they are not words spoken from an ivory pain-free palace, but words forged from the fire of a deep faith in God.

And as we continue our reflections on monastic spirituality, we also want to ask what we can learn from the monastery in relation to this text.

Bill Johnson and I were talking just a few days ago about how in these dark economic days the monastery was looking better all the time. To be a monk or a nun might make it a bit easier not to be anxious about anything. But even monks and nuns have worries. Far from being removed from the world, they carry the world in their hearts constantly in prayer.

As we try to discern a path to peace for our own lives, it is the witness of scripture and the church, including especially monasteries, that the journey toward peace is marked by a life that is shaped by prayer.

Don’t be anxious about anything, says Paul, but in everything with prayers and petitions make your requests known to God, and the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds.

Paul is not speaking of a life that simply includes a prayer in the morning or at meals or in moments of crisis. This is a life immersed in prayer for the purpose of living in peace, no matter how difficult the circumstances.

And it is important I think to notice the thoughts of a prayer-shaped life. Notice Paul did not say, “Think about what is comfortable or secure or prosperous.” Which is what we usually seek in order to have peace. But rather he says to think on what is excellent and true and just.

Many of us carry doubts about prayer and whether or not it changes things. We pray and pray and pray for something good and it doesn’t happen, and so we wonder, “Why pray? What good is prayer? Does it really make any difference?” These are legitimate questions we have and we must continually ask them as we search the mysteries of prayer.

As we look to monasticism and some of the great writers on prayer throughout the history of the church, we find that prayer is not so much about changing the circumstances around us as it is about the change that takes place within us in spite of or because of the circumstances around us.

Writer and nun Joan Chittister says we pray “so that our minds and our hearts, our ideas and our lives, come to be in sync, so that we are what we say we are, so that the prayers that pass our lips change our lives, so that God’s presence becomes palpable to us. Prayer brings us to burn off the dross of what clings to our souls like mildew and sets us free for deeper, richer, truer lives in which we become what we seek.” [1]

Elizabeth Canham adds, “Prayer is work. Prayer is the context in which we confront our fears, recognize resistance, let go of demands for immediate solutions to life’s dilemmas, and learn to wait.” [2]

One monk writes: “Prayer is God’s abiding presence made real.” [3]

Monasteries have much to teach us about God’s abiding presence made real. They are governed by a rule of life centered in prayer and worship. They teach us that prayer is not meant to be an attachment to the life that we live; it is meant to be the center of the life that we live, permeating all that we do, considering our every activity, our every breath as prayer.

Prayer lies at the very heart of the Christian life; it holds everything together, it sustains every other activity . . . Praying can never be set apart from the rest of life, it is the life itself. St. Benedict did not ask his monks to take a vow to pray, for he expected prayer to be central in their lives, permeating whatever else they were doing. [4]

Devote yourself often to prayer, he writes. Prayer in the Rule of Benedict is appropriately discussed in chapter 8 immediately after the chapter on humility. Prayer is the natural response of people who know their place in the universe. [5]

The great purpose of monastic life and for every Christian life is to pray constantly, keeping the memory of God alive in your heart at every moment of the day and night; seeing God in everything and to be aware of God at all times.

Two Ways of Praying

How do we do that? As we consider a prayer-shaped life, I want to offer two ways of praying that may help us experience a continual awareness of God.

The Daily Office / Liturgy of the Hours

The first is called by many different names: The Daily Office, The Liturgy of the Hours, The Opus Dei, Daily Prayer, or Fixed Hour Prayer. It is the call to pray several different times each day so as to frame the day in prayer with praise and thanksgiving. It serves to make the worship of God the center of our life.

The heart of the prayer life proscribed by the Rule of Benedict is called the Opus Dei - the Work of God. It is the work we are to do for God and the work that God does in us.

The psalmist says, “Seven times a day I will rise to praise your name.” And so the early Hebrew faithful and the early Christians did just that. Some monastic communities still pray seven times a day. Others four or five times.

In the sixth century, Benedict scheduled prayer times during the day to coincide with the times of the changing of the Roman imperial guard. When the world was revering its secular rulers Benedict taught us to give our homage to God, the divine ruler of heaven and earth.6

Thousands of years before Christ, the people of God . . . made it their practice to rise up in the night or stop in their daily rounds to praise the name of Yahweh, to give thanks, to acknowledge God’s presence, to seek God’s blessing, and to offer themselves to God for God’s work here on earth. [7]

Praying the Hours is a Jewish, Christian, and Muslim tradition. Faithful Muslims stop four times a day - at work, at home, while traveling - and pray toward Mecca. There are Jews and Christians outside monasteries who do the same. This is a counter-cultural practice. To stop commerce, travel, conversation, even ministry for a short time in order to make a prayer offering to God. Our culture does not reward those of us who stop three of four times a day. But God does. God rewards the One who practices regular prayer with peace and with an intimacy of relationship that truly is the meaning of life. [8]

To make such offerings each day - morning, noon, evening, and night, or by whatever pattern that one follows - is to live inside the frame of the day that the Lord has made. It is a chance to recognize and to be grateful for the fact that, as least as far as you are concerned, God has indeed acted, and the world is indeed a new and fresh creation in which you can live and love and work and rest. [9]

The saying of the offices seven times is so that each stage of the day’s work may be appropriately offered to God. [10]

Each of the day hours (or times of prayer) begins with the verse, “O God, come to my assistance: O God, make haste to help me” (Ps 70:2)

Benedict instructs his communities . . . during the day, to recite brief, simple, scriptural prayers at regular intervals, easy enough to be recited and prayed even in the workplace, to wrench their minds from the mundane to the mystical, away from concentration on life’s petty particulars to attention on its transcendent meaning. [11]

Merton speaks of being attentive to the times of the day: when the birds begins to sing, and the deer comes out of the morning fog, and the sun comes up. The reason why we don’t take time is a feeling that we have to keep moving. This is a real sickness. [12] And it will not bring peace.

The Daily Office allows prayer to permeate everything we do. Returning to prayer throughout the day reminds us that attending to one’s spiritual life is as essential as the habit of eating meals. [13]

Monasteries have a bell that calls them to prayer. I love the sound of church bells that ring across a town. Thomas Merton says, “The bells break in upon our cares in order to remind us that all things pass away and our preoccupations are not important. The bells say: we have spoken for centuries from the towers of great Churches. We have spoken to the saints, your fathers and mothers, in their land. We called them, as we call you, to sanctity.” The bells are calling us all, and that echo we hear within is the sound of our longing to be with God. [14]

Ron Rolheiser suggests that we consider the alarm clock as a monastic bell calling us to prayer. A revolutionary way to think of the alarm clock. Not quite the beauty of church bells, but we can set our alarms to sacred music.

To give you an idea of what praying the daily office might be like, I want to share with you portions of prayers from a prayer book I sometimes use written by Robert Benson. [15]

Imagine rising in the morning with the words:

God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
This very day the Lord has acted. May God’s name be praised.
Deliver us, Almighty God, from the service of self alone,
that we may do the work You have given us to do,
in truth and beauty, and for the common good.
In your tender compassion, the morning sun has risen upon us,
to shine on us, we who live in darkness,
to guide our feet into the paths of peace.
We will know your power and presence this day
if we will but listen for your voice.

And then pausing in the middle of the day to pray:

Drive far from us all wrong desires, Almighty God,
and incline our hearts to keep your ways.
Grant that having cheerfully done your will this day,
we may, when night comes, rejoice and give you thanks.

And then as the sun begins to set and the work day draws to a close to pray:

You made this day for the works of the light, Almighty God,
and this night for the refreshment of our minds and bodies.
Keep us now in Christ;
grant us a peaceful evening, and a night free from sin.

And then before we close our eyes in sleep to pray:

May the Lord grant us a quiet night and peace at the last.
Look down from on high, Almighty God,
and illumine this night with your light.
Keep watch, dear Lord, with all who work or watch or weep this night.
May the Lord guide us waking and guard us sleeping;
that awake we may watch with Christ
and asleep we may rest in peace.

Joan Chittister says that this night prayer, also known as Compline, is designed to do what we all need to do at night: (1) recognize that what we did that day was not perfect, (2) hope that the next day will be better, (3) praise the God whose love and grace brought us through another day, and (4) go to bed trusting that the God who sees our every action is more concerned with our motives than with our failures. [16]

One of the suggested scripture readings contained in the beautiful late-night service of Compline is the invitation of Jesus from Matthew 11: “Come to me you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens and I will give you rest.” What an appropriate way to end the day.

This way of praying is a re-focusing of our attention on God at specific moments. To do so makes a great difference to the quality and enjoyment of each day. For really the Rule is telling me that ultimately praying is living, working, loving, accepting, the refusal to take anything or anyone for granted but rather to try to find Christ in and through them all. For Christ is to be found in the circumstances, the people, the things of daily life. St. Benedict hopes that if we are continually aware of this we shall lift our hearts to God and in this way our whole life will become prayer in action. [17]

So the Daily Office.

The Jesus Prayer

There is also The Jesus Prayer that for centuries people have been taught to pray throughout the day. It is the prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.”

In J. D. Salinger’s novel, Franny and Zooey, Franny is seeking to understand what is meant by the biblical instruction to pray without ceasing. She comes across the classic book The Cloud of Unknowing where the pilgrim in the story is on the same search. The pilgrim is introduced to The Jesus Prayer and invited to pray that prayer over and over and over again. To pray the Jesus Prayer, or as the pilgrim suggests, just repeat any name of God.

Franny decides to do the same. And she finds the experience rewarding. Her boyfriend at the time, Lane, is not so impressed. He wants to know the reward. And Franny says, “You get to see God. Something happens in some absolutely nonphysical part of the heart . . . and you see God.”
The idea is that sooner or later, the prayer moves from the lips and the head down to a center in the heart, and the prayer becomes automatic in the heart, right along with the heartbeat.

Franny’s brother Zooey tells her the only aim of the Jesus Prayer is to endow the person who says it with Christ-Consciousness. “When you don’t see Jesus for exactly who he is,” says Zooey, “you miss the whole point of the Jesus Prayer.” [18]

The life we are called to seek is a prayer-shaped, Christ-Conscious life, where every part of the day is immersed in prayer, where every heartbeat is a humble prayer for mercy, where our lives becomes prayer. So that our thoughts are filled with all that is good and noble and trustworthy and excellent. And so that the peace of God which passes all our understanding will guard our hearts and minds.

________________________

1. Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict: Insights For the Ages, Crossroad, 1992, 89-90
2. Elizabeth Canham, Heart Whispers: Benedictine Wisdom For Today, Abingdon, 1999, 74
3. As quoted in Esther de Waal, Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict, Liturgical Press, 2001, , 156
4. Ibid., 145
5. Chittister, 75
6. Chittister, 85
7. Robert Benson, A Good Life: Benedict’s Guide to Everyday Joy, Paraclete Press, 2004, 19-20
8. Tony Jones, The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices For Everyday Life, Zondervan, 2005, 122
9. Benson, 28
10. de Waal, 150
11. Chittister, 85
12. as quoted in de Waal, 155
13. Dennis Okholm, Monk Habits For Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants, Brazos, 2008, 102
14. Benson, 29
15. Robert Benson, Daily Prayer: A Little Book for Saying the Daily Office, Carolina Broadcasting and Publishing, 2006
16. Chittister, 88
17. de Waal, 151-153
18. J. D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey, Little, Brown and Company, 1961, pp.36-39, 112, 170

November 2, 2008 - "True Holiness"

2008-11-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
All Saints Day / Pentecost 25
November 2, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SERIES: The New Monasticism

TRUE HOLINESS

Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 34:1-10, 22; 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13; Matthew 23:1-12

It seems dream-like this vision of heaven’s future given to John by the angel. It was said of the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns, that he could not read this passage without tears coming to his eyes; and we can see why.

John looked and saw a vision of heaven’s final victory over sin and death. He saw a great multitude, too many to number, a multitude too large for the human mind to count.

And the multitude is diverse. From every nation, race, tribe, class and tongue. It is so beautiful to hear Karen and English languages together when we raise our voices in song or prayer. It’s just a small taste of what heaven will be like.

Those who make up this diverse multitude are wearing robes - clean, fresh, white robes. And they are standing before the Lamb, the Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world, Jesus the Christ, and they are waving palm branches and singing:

Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb.

And their song is answered by the song of heaven’s perpetual choir singing:

Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen!

It’s even more beautiful than Handel, one of the white-robed multitude, could ever have imagined.

This heavenly choir is singing a song of joy and pure delight in the presence of God and the Lamb. Having come through life’s great tribulations, beat up by life’s demands, they have strived to live gospel lives of justice and peace in a world of greed and violence.

The voice of heaven says, “These are they who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

“Washed in the blood of the Lamb.” That language may embarrass some of us. But we should be cautious about relinquishing the rich language of biblical metaphor. The Blood of the Lamb is our human poetry pointing to the self-emptying love of God acted out on the cross. It points us to the truth of grace: what we cannot do for ourselves, God has done for us. We cannot wash away the stain of our sin, nor can we rid the world of its sin, but Christ is the Lamb who taketh away the sins of the world. It is the truest form of holiness the world has ever known.

Our Gospel lesson this week from Matthew records Jesus’ rebuke of the scribes and pharisees for a false holiness. A piety that sits in the seats of honor and longs to be shown respect in public places and to be called by their titles rather than their names. They say the right things. They teach the right doctrine, but they do not practice what they teach. They make religion a heavy burden to bear, constructing a list of do’s and don’ts. Any helpful deeds they do, they do only to be seen by others.

But Jesus calls us to a life of secret servanthood, rooted in a holiness only God can give, a holiness grounded in a relationship with Christ, where God’s Spirit does the work of transformation within us, a transformation that will not be complete until the day we gather around the throne of God and the Lamb, wearing a white robe washed clean by the grace of God.

Saint Bernard explains how Jesus brought true holiness to him. He says: “[Jesus] is life and power, and as soon as he enters in, he awakens my slumbering soul; he stirs and soothes and pierces my heart, for before it was hard as stone, and diseased. So he began to pluck out and destroy, to build up and to plant, to water dry places and illuminate dark ones; to open what was closed and to warm what was cold; to make the crooked straight and the rough places smooth, so that my soul may bless the Lord, and all that is within me may praise his holy name.”

Whatever the cost, isn’t this the goal that all of us who bear Christ’s name share? And who can live in today’s world and not experience the hardening of heart of which Bernard speaks? We don’t want it to happen. But it does. Our hearts become infected by the violence, lust, greed, dishonesty, and materialism that rear their ugly heads daily. [1]

Flannery O’Connor wrote a short story inspired by this text from Revelation. The main character, Mrs. Turpin, is someone who occupied herself at night by naming the classes of people. At the bottom of the heap were most colored people, then next to them were the white-trash, then above them were the home-owners, and above them the home-and-land owners, to which she and her husband belonged.

Mrs. Turpin goes into a doctor’s office and finds herself thrust into the company of people she despises. Mrs. Turpin considered herself a good, respectable Christian woman and she silently thanks Jesus that he didn’t make her like the other people in the room, described in her words as “white trash,” “lunatic,” “ugly.” Her silent prayers were silent, but her attitude came through clearly in her conversation.

Suddenly, the young woman across the room Mrs. Turpin had silently called ugly attacked her and called her a “wart-hog from hell.” Mrs. Turpin felt the words driven into her heart; they tore into her as a conviction of the Spirit. She went home, out into her backyard, and as she gazed into the pig-pen she saw a vision. From the ground a brilliant swinging fiery bridge was raised from earth to heaven and along that bridge “a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven.” O’Connor describes the transforming vision:

There were whole companies of white-trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of blacks . . . in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself . . . had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right. She leaned forward to observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away. [2]

Mrs. Turpin had been given a vision as had John on the Isle of Patmos. As have we. And the vision is of a multitude of people from every nation, race, tribe, class and tongue, people battered and bruised by life’s tribulation, people guilty of evil and self-righteousness, yet all of them, including the twenty-five we have remembered today, wearing robes washed white in the Blood of the Lamb, smelling clean with the rays of eternal sunshine, singing and shouting, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

And if we look closely we see among them our own “shocked and altered faces,” for we, too, have been invited to the heavenly banquet feast. Where we can worship God day and night with all the saints of all the ages. Tears of grief and sorrow wiped away. Drinking from the springs of living water that never shall run dry. Springs fed from the river of life that flow from the throne of God and the Lamb. Sheltered by the Shepherd who made us and died for us, risen so that we might have life in his name. And if that’s not good news to you, you haven’t heard the good news.

True holiness is the holiness that only Christ can bring, where even your virtues are burned away, and you are robed in white, dressed in the righteousness of God.

Did you know, did you know there’s a white robe ready for you, made just for you? Christ is holding it for you even now. What do you say? Come on. Put it on.
______________________________________

1. Linus Mundy, A Retreat with Benedict and Bernard: Seeking God Alone - Together, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1998, 29-30
2. Flannery O’Connor, The Complete Stories, 1971, 509

Sept 21, 2008 - "Good Work and a Sabbath's Rest"

2008-09-27T06:26:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky

Pentecost 19
September 21, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SERIES: The New Monasticism
GOOD WORK AND A SABBATH’S REST

Exodus 16:2-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 37-45; Philippians 1:21-30; Matthew 20:1-16

It’s been a turbulent week in Louisville. One week ago we gathered in this place not knowing that a storm was brewing outside that would significantly affect our lives for the rest of the week; a storm that continues to affect many of us even still. Mary Oakley said except for the indoor plumbing, it felt like her childhood. On a lesser note, the turbulence continues to build at Valhalla as the U.S. tries to hold on for a Ryder Cup victory. And the baseball world says goodbye tonight to perhaps its greatest sanctuary, Yankee Stadium.

Of much more significant note, it has been a turbulent week on Wall Street. This is a storm that has been brewing for some time. Warnings have been sounded from many corners. The storm is still raging and we are uncertain of the effects and what the recovery will look like and when it will be.

Storms of nature and economics have a way of reminding us what really matters and where our security truly lies. Monastic spirituality can do the same, drawing us away from the false securities and superficialities and craziness of our age, calling us to the wise living of our days.

The prophet Jeremiah says,” Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls” (6:16). Are you a weary soul looking for rest? Jeremiah calls us to search the ancient paths.

That is what we are doing these days as we consider a 1500 year old spirituality shaped by the monastic rule of St. Benedict, a rule which is heavily informed by a 4000 year old biblical spirituality.

The Benedictine motto that rules monasteries is the Latin phrase ora et labora (to pray and to work). The goal is to create a healthy rhythm of prayer and work, study and service for the purpose of spiritual transformation. In a few weeks we are going to look in depth at monastic prayer. Today I want to look at shaping a healthy rhythm of work and rest in our lives.

Exodus 16

Our scripture lesson this morning illustrates this for us in a story of divine provision, human work, and a Sabbath’s rest.

The Israelites were complaining about having nothing to eat. There was no electricity in the wilderness. All the food in the fridge had gone bad. And the spoiled children that they were, they just knew they were going to die of starvation and discomfort.

So God told Moses to tell the people that daily manna would be provided. Their job was to go out each day and do what was necessary to gather it. On the sixth day there would be enough manna for two days which they were to gather in order to rest on the Sabbath.

Simple plan. Work six days. Rest on the seventh. God will provide.

Now this simple plan only works when greed is kept in check, when desires do not lead us into debt, and when companies care more about their employees than their stockholders. Unjust social systems sometimes force unhealthy living through overwork and poverty wages. There are outside forces that make a healthy balanced life of work and rest extremely difficult.

However, for most of us, the responsibility for a healthy lifestyle falls on us. We are responsible to do good work and take a Sabbath’s rest.

If you are a student, perhaps you will want to think about your responsibility to balance school work with ipod/MySpace time. Even as a child or teenager, you can work on developing a healthy, balanced lifestyle that very few adults illustrate for you.

Work

The Rule of Benedict calls us to good work. He says: Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore, the community members should have specified periods for manual labor as well as for prayerful reading. When they live by the labor of their hands, as our ancestors and apostles did, then they are really monks. Refrain from too much eating and sleeping, and from laziness. [1]

Benedict stressed the dignity of work for all, both the wealthy and the indigent. In his day, this was a revolutionary idea. Those born into noble homes expected servants to manage the annoying minutiae of their lives, but in Benedict’s monasteries, everyone tilled the fields, watered the crops, harvested the corn, weeded the gardens, worked in the kitchen, and served others in a variety of ways. [2]

The monastery had no slaves, modeled not on the secular world but on the servant ministry to which Jesus called his disciples (John 13). Tasks were rotated, and monks undertook the work in a spirit of humility for the well-being of the whole community. [3]

Everyone in the monastery did everything. And it was good work for the well-being of the whole community, which included serving the needy. Benedict says: Relieve the lot of the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick, bury the dead, go to help the troubled, and console the sorrowing.

The monastic life calls us to engage in good work without being overworked. There is to be a rhythm of work and rest.

But we do not always embrace healthy rhythms of work and rest.

One reason has to do with what has been previously mentioned: unjust social and economic structures that force seven day work weeks for poverty wages, and these structures must be challenged.

There is also the way in which many of us allow our work to define everything about us. It is our status in the world and the rewards are often more clearly visible through promotion and position and pay, whereas with other ways of being in the world - spouse, parent, child, volunteer - the rewards are not so clearly visible.

If you read the business magazines you get the impression that if you work only forty hours a week, you will never get ahead. If you read the next article, you discover that those who work seventy hours a week are called names like “workaholic.” And in our society that’s considered a badge of honor. We often call ourselves workaholics with a hidden sense of pride.

But when we overwork it wears us down and it wears down our family and others with whom we share life together.

We work ourselves to death because workaholics are our cultural heroes. And we want to be heroes. Workaholics get the promotions and the praise. We don’t pass out rewards for practicing a healthy rhythm of work and rest. We idolize the American way of life which is in many ways a sick society with misplaced priorities.

A large part of our sickness as a society is the preeminent place we give to work. The idolization of work I think does more to contribute to the breakdown of the family than anything else. We would like to atribute our problems to other factors and other groups of people, but I think the problem lies elsewhere. The drive toward efficiency and productivity is a great enemy of the spiritual life.

Perhaps some of us need to ask ourselves the question: Have I been frenetically pushing the limits, rushing from one place to another, taking on too many responsibilities because I favor rewards for my busy-ness?

Often you will find within the workaholic a person who uses their work as a sort of “anti-sanctuary,” an alternative busy place to go to avoid the difficult task of looking into one’s own soul. [4] If we stay busy, we think to ourselves, we can hide the secret fears and failures of other parts of our lives.

Work is not what defines the Benedictine. Work is important. But work never comes first. The monastic does not exist for work. What defines the Benedictine monk and what defined Christ and what must define us as followers of Christ is a single-minded search for God. Creative and productive work are simply meant to enhance the world and sustain us while we grow into God.

In our culture we tend to value work solely as a means of making money. Benedict tells us to see our work as an opportunity to serve those around us and make the world a better place. Work is to be connected to our spiritual life. Work is made sacred when it is centered in a prayerful life. Good work is not based on efficiency, productivity, and profit. Good work is work that enables us to love God and neighbor best. Good work does not bring harm to creation or to the lives of others. Good work is holy work.

The monks at Gethsemani here in Kentucky have for generations been known for their cheeses. One monk quipped that in order to make their cheese-selling holy, they would need to open a franchise near Bethlehem and call it “Cheeses of Nazareth.”

One of the gifts of monastic spirituality is to call us away from the centrality and idolization of work. Robert Benson writes, “Perhaps we need to remember that the work we do is not the center of the universe. (But rather) the work that we do is to be done in the service of the Center of the Universe.” [5]

In the Middle Ages a traveler asked three hard-at-work stone masons what they were doing. The first said, “I am sanding down the block of marble.” The second said, “I am preparing a foundation.” The third said, “I am building a cathedral.” Remembering the greater cause of why we are doing what we do is one of life’s more demanding difficulties.

Benedictine spirituality calls us to something so much more difficult than hard work. And that is a healthy rhythm of work and prayer and rest.

Rest

The Rule of Benedict calls us to good work . . . and a Sabbath’s rest. Included in this rest is silence and stillness and prayer.

If Robert Benson is right and our work is not the center of the universe, we are free to rest from our labors. To be monks and nuns in the world is to make space for rest. If God can rest from creation on the seventh day, so can we. For one day a week, the world can go on without us. And for periods of time throughout every day, we need to go on without the world. We need rest. Monks and nuns have bed times. And they observe them religiously, literally. Bedtime is a spiritual event.

The mere presence of a monastery stands tall as a counter-cultural symbol, a reminder of alternative ways of living centered in something other than productivity. The church as a monastery should stand as a counter-cultural symbol against distraction and busyness, and teach the world to take care of the life God has given us.

The church as a monastery provides a refuge for people living busy lives, those caught up in the distractions of this noisy, confusing, and disordered world. It is a sanctuary, a place of peace and calm, where the ways of the world do not follow. [6]

To quote Benson again: “Perhaps the answer for all of us who are weary is to do less and not more. To walk slower rather than faster. To be more present to this day than we are to tomorrow. To just stand there sometimes rather than just do something.” [7]

“Be so still inside that you can listen at every moment to what life is offering you,” says Brother David Steidl-Rast. [8]

We must take time for silence and solitude, rest and reflection. The Rule is built around silence and we ignore Benedict’s call to silence and stillness at the peril of our spiritual lives.

We live in a world in which we are encouraged to multitask. We eat fast food, expect overnight delivery, and sign up for instant messaging. We get too little sleep, have too many commitments and too much on our plate most days and weeks. So we look for books that can help us pray our way to powerful Christian living in ten minutes a day, and we wonder why we are often left feeling somehow devoid of God’s presence in our lives. [9]

If the way in which I live does not have some silence and solitude and stillness and rest, then there is only one person to blame in the end. There is only one person who can, in fact, get me to do less and not more, to stop moving and be still, to slow done instead of speed up. And I am that person. [10]

There is within us all a longing for a deep connection to the silence, to the “great Solitude at the Center of All Things,” as Merton once called it. It is in returning and rest that we shall be saved, says the psalmist. But we must stop and sit down and be silent. For in the rest, I began to see things a bit more clearly and to be drawn a little more powerfully back into the life of work and community and prayer that has been given me to live. [11]

Conclusion: Time / Restlessness

There is about many of us a restless and anxious distraction that characterizes our lives. Part of the restlessness is built-in. St. Augustine prayed, “O Lord, you have made us for Thy self, and we are restless until we rest in Thee.” Part of the restlessness is God-given. Part of our restlessness will always be with us.

This divine inner restlessness should, at times, direct us outward toward others and toward a purpose beyond ourselves, doing something with our lives that matters in the world.

But the restlessness that harms our souls is not put to rest by staying busy; it is by living an integrated life of work and rest, prayer and service, a life centered in contemplation, a life that seeks an intimate union with God.

There comes a point when our restlessness should direct us inward. Rather than driving us outward, hoping to satisfy our unrest with more activity, more people, more work, more entertainment, more distraction, we must allow our restlessness to lead us beside still waters and to lay us down in green pastures and to restore our souls in the quiet presence of God.

A healthy spiritual life that you find embodied in most monastic communities is the desire to be an “active contemplative,” to live a life shaped by the rhythm of work and prayer, service and silence. Living such a life is a test of the maturity of a person’s spirituality.

It has been said that the task of life is to keep your world in order. To seriously follow the spiritual journey, particularly amid our world’s busyness, we must learn to guard the preciousness of time by savoring the beauty of prayer and reflection, work and rest. Life in God is about the nourishment of our souls, bodies, and minds. And it’s about living in the context of a community that supports us in our common goals.

We are called to be examples of a saner lifestyle, creating a schedule that honors our spiritual life, consecrating time to a higher purpose than productivity and consumption. Our goal is spiritual transformation.

So honor the life you’ve given by doing good work and practicing a Sabbath’s rest. Amen.

_______________________________

1. St. Benedict, The Rule of St. Benedict, ed. Timothy Fry, Vintage Spiritual Classics, 1998, ch. 48
2. Carmen Butcher Acevedo, Man of Blessing: A Life of St. Benedict, 84
3. Elizabeth Canham, Heart Whispers: Benedictine Wisdom For Today, Abingdon, 1999, 91
4. Abbot Christopher Jamison, Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life, Liturgical Press, 2006, 19, 21
5. Robert Benson, A Good Life: Benedict’s Guide to Everyday Joy, Paraclete Press, 2004, 68-69
6. Wayne Teasdale, A Monk in the World, New World Library, 2002, xxv
7. Benson, 68
8. As quoted in Esther de Waal, Living With Contradiction: An Introduction to Benedictine Spirituality, Morehouse, 1998, 79
9. Benson, 24
10. Ibid., 37
11. Ibid., 42-43

September 14, 2008 - "Forgiveness and Reconcilliation"

2008-09-20T18:21:00.001-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky

Pentecost 18
September 14, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SERIES: The New Monasticism
VOWS OF COMMUNITY: FORGIVENESS AND RECONCILIATION

Exodus 14:19-31; Psalm 114; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35

We are spending this fall looking to the monastic life as a model for congregational life. One thing you cannot escape in a monastery is community. You have to learn how to live together in peace. Any community, even a monastery, requires the practice of forgiveness and reconciliation. Community relationships are simply impossible without it. Because we all hurt others and get hurt by others. No one knows this better than country music writers.

One of the many things my theology professor Frank Tupper did for me was not only open my mind to profound theology, but he opened my heart to country music. Frank has spent the past three gatherings of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship hosting a breakout session on Country Music and the Spiritual Life. There’s a lot of country music I cannot stand, but some of the lyrics are priceless. Country music is real life, especially when it comes to heartache. I love titles like:

“You Stomped on My Heart and Knocked that Sucker Flat”
“If Heartaches Were Wine, I’d Be Drunk All the Time”
“You Stuck My Heart in an Old Tin Can and Shot It Off a Log”
“Mama Get the Hammer (There’s a Fly on Papa’s Head)”

You don’t get stuff like that anywhere else.

On my way to pick up Ryan from pre-school this week, I drove by Harvey Brown Presbyterian Church. I’ve been able to tell by the sermon titles on the sign out front that they follow the lectionary also. The sermon title for this week sounds like a sacred hymn turned country song: “O Grudge That Will Not Let Me Go.”

Those are the kinds of lines that get you in touch with the real world. And many a day, those lyrics form the prayers of our hurting hearts.

In Matthew 18, Jesus has been talking about what to do with our hurts. And when Jesus talks he is always teaching us that the kingdom of God works not as the world works, but as a new way to live based on forgiveness.

The Christian community deals with offense and pardon differently than the world does. Or at least it should.

But the Christian community struggles with forgiveness just like the world does. If you have no one you find hard to forgive, you are either a very rare person or a very young person. Chances are that for most of us when talk turns toward forgiveness, faces of those who have hurt us come to mind.

Peter is obviously thinking of someone he finds hard to forgive. He asks Jesus the question, “If someone sins against me, how often should I forgive? Seven times?” It is a very generous offer. More than twice what is required by Jewish law. But Jesus says, “No. Seventy times seven!”

And the disciples are stunned. Are we supposed to forgive someone 490 times? Well, the point is not that we forgive someone a particular number of times. The point is not to put a limit on forgiveness but rather live with a heart trained in unlimited forgiveness. By the time you forgive someone ten or twenty times, forgiveness becomes a practice of the heart.

And we must learn the practice of forgiveness. If we think back to last week where Jesus talked about confronting those who have hurt us for the purpose of reconciliation, there is no point in me confronting you about your sin if I have not first been shaped as a person who is capable of forgiving you for that sin.

The church cannot take a gospel message of reconciliation to the world while being unreconciled to one another.

To make his point, Jesus tells quite the absurd tale that his listeners would have no doubt found amusing.

A slave approaches the king with a debt of over a billion dollars. Well that’s a laugher! An Egyptian Pharaoh couldn’t come up with that kind of money, much less a slave. The point of course is that the debt we owe God is so enormous it is unrepayable.

The king threatens to sell the slave and his family.

The slave asks for patience, saying he will pay the debt. Another joke. It would take him well over 100,000 years to pay that kind of debt.

The debt is so enormous, and the request to repay so ridiculous, the king does not extend patience but compassion. The king forgives the debt, writes it off entirely, and sets him free. Extravagant forgiveness. Pure grace. He is forgiven.

But now the story turns dark.

The forgiven servant goes out and refuses to forgive a debt of $3000 owed him. The servant had learned nothing from his compassionate master. The king hears about it and throws the slave in prison for the rest of his life.

And so we ask ourselves: What have we learned from our compassionate God? Do you know what it is like, do you recall experiences where you knew God had forgiven you? When tears flow from your heart. When scales of guilt are lifted from your soul. Or a gentle rain begins to fall upon your sin-parched life. You were forgiven and you knew it.

What have we learned from our compassionate God? Have we been willing to take the beauty of forgiveness and share it with others? With all that we’ve been forgiven as the beloved children of God, we really have no right to withhold the blessing of forgiveness from anyone else.

Most of the time we try not to make our lack of forgiveness too obvious. We keep it subtle. Someone says something negative about you and you hear about it. You make a mental note not to forget. A church member did something years ago and ever since then you’ve been secretly hoping they’ll go to church somewhere else. Are there people here to whom you smile politely, but you wouldn’t choose to sit by in worship?

Sometimes the whole idea of forgiveness is too difficult to even think about. There are wives who hate their husbands for a betrayal that will never go away. Former friends who said angry, calculated, spiteful words that neither will ever forget. Children who can’t get over what their parents did. And fathers who hate their son-in-laws for what they are doing to their grandchildren. It’s hard to forgive. Sometimes we would rather lose a sister or a brother than go through the pain of forgiving them.

In this parable, I don’t know that Jesus is prescribing judgment as much as he is describing the harsh reality of an unforgiving heart. When we fail to forgive as the servant in the parable, we choose prison. We choose to lock our selves up in our bitterness.

Jesus wants to make us aware that there’s a direct connection between forgiving others and being forgiven. Those who don’t offer grace to others don’t experience grace for themselves.

In our best moments, we’d like to leave our bitterness behind. We recognize that our refusal to forgive hurts us. But how do we make the resentment toward those who have hurt us go away?

It is the work of God within us. And God does that work by forgiving us day after day after day, failure after failure after failure, sin after sin after sin. After being forgiven so much, we learn to forgive others.

Forgiveness is the attribute of those who have been forgiven. We discover the sometimes painful truth that we are like those who have hurt us. When we’re unwilling to forgive others it’s because we’ve forgotten the grace we’ve been given. C. S. Lewis said, “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”

An embarrassed employee is summoned to the boss’ office expecting to hear a blistering dismissal. The company may file criminal charges. The boss asks if he is guilty. The clerk says he is. But then the old man shocks him, “I’m going to forgive you. You’ll be the second person in this company who has been pardoned. What you did, I did long ago. We both belong to grace now.”

We all belong to grace. Stanley Hauerwas says, “We are members of a community of the forgiven.” [1]

Forgiveness is what makes us God’s people. The willingness to do the hard work of constantly reconciling our selves to one another makes us the church. The church that doesn’t forgive one another has ceased to be the church.

We forgive as God does, not winking at evil, but taking evil seriously and still opting for grace. Forgiving another doesn’t mean we’ll forget what they’ve done, that our wounds will completely heal, or that we’ll feel warm and fuzzy, but it does mean that we will see them in the light of God’s grace.

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to forgiveness is that most people have a hard time actually believing they are forgiven. It is arrogance to keep carrying the guilt and shame when God says your sins have been pardoned. As John Claypool observes, “A lot of people lay down their burdens at the altar, but then pick them right up again and carry them out the door unchanged.”

Another obstacle to forgiveness is the false self-esteem of being the victim. There is a strange cult of victimhood these days. We take pride in being offended. It gives us the moral upper hand. And it allows us to escape our own responsibility for a breach in relationship. It becomes our excuse for failure. We wear our wounds like a badge of honor, hoping others will feel sorry for us. And with all the benefits from being victimized, why would we want to forgive? Of course, when everyone is a victim, no one takes responsibility and nothing gets solved.

In the Jewish Talmud a person is required to ask forgiveness three times in the presence of witnesses. If forgiveness is not granted, then the responsibility for the original offense falls on the person who refuses to forgive. After all, he or she is the one who will not let the wound heal.

Jesus goes further than that. He does not even require that forgiveness be asked before it is given. Because that’s how God is. And regardless of the repentance of the offender, forgiveness is necessary for our own souls, and for the healing of the wider community. A refusal to forgive is actually a sin against the community, the church.

And you have to ask yourself, is this the kind of person you want to be? Angry, bitter, plotting revenge, finding pride in being “the offended one”?

Our choice is to live in the injustices we’ve suffered or in the mercy we’ve received. God doesn’t ask us to create forgiveness out of nothing. God invites us to join in what God has already given.

But listen, forgiveness is the best revenge. Forgiveness heals our wounds. Forgiveness repairs the torn fabric of human society by removing one more ounce of hostility from the world.

I read this week about a television show “Forgive or Forget,” in which guests appear who have done things that have hurt their loved ones. They confront each other to see if forgiveness will happen. The host of the show goes by the name of Mother Love. And at the close of each episode, Mother Love says, “Never underestimate the power of forgiveness.”

The monks of Blue Cloud Abbey in Minnesota know that power. They gather each Thursday evening to participate in a ritual of communal reconciliation, confessing and forgiving those attitudes and actions that have negatively affected community life in recent days. Then they join together in worship and Holy Communion, followed by a buffet feast of joy. [2]

Forgiveness and reconciliation are holy moments of grace and great joy. Outrageous love can heal because “love covers a multitude of sins” and “keeps no record of wrongs.” Touched by God’s grace we become gracious ourselves.

You may recall the story of Shakespeare’s King Lear. He doesn’t wait to die to give up his kingdom, but goes ahead and divides it between his daughters Goneril and Regan. For this he asks little in return, only hospitality - a place for him and his knights to stay. But all the gifts in the world don’t make these two daughters generous. They pretend to love Lear to get their inheritance, but his kindness doesn’t make them kind. Like the servant in Jesus’ parable, the sisters quickly become defensive of what they’ve been given. Why should they share it? They push their father out. His grace doesn’t make them gracious. King Lear is a tragedy that ends in darkness and tears, but there is a gorgeous reconciliation between Lear and his youngest daughter Cordelia. The power of forgiveness produces a final moment of joy and hope.

Come, let’s away to prison;
We two alone will sing like birds in the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: and we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh.

We are the church when we pray and sing and tell old tales and laugh and share the outrageous, unlimited forgiveness of God.

___________________

1. Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew, Brazos Press, 2006, 166

2. Dennis Okholm, Monk Habits For Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants, Brazos, 2008, 82-83

September 7, 2008 - "How to Have a Good Fight"

2008-09-11T20:52:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 17
September 7, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SERIES: The New Monasticism

HOW TO HAVE A GOOD FIGHT

Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 149; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20

We have before us in today’s texts and the ones for next week the most important words to a church in order to protect it from disaster. They are words that address disagreement, confrontation, forgiveness and reconciliation.

At work within these texts are two monastic values the Rule of Benedict addresses in detail but are foreign to contemporary church life: discipline and stability.

THE CALL TO LOVE, THE REALITY OF CONFLICT

All of which is wrapped up in the call to love even in the midst of conflict.

Benedict says the Rule is given in order to amend faults and to safeguard love. [1]

The apostle Paul writes, “Owe no one anything but to love them.”

When you sign up to be a disciple of Jesus you are taking a vow against hatred; you’re making a promise, in so far as you can with God’s help, to see all people through eyes of love. That includes our enemies. Jesus couldn’t have said it plainer: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

We continually bear out the truth the Bible teaches that human beings are broken by sin. So it ought not surprise us when people can’t get along. The Bible doesn’t teach us to expect a world where everybody naturally loves and respects everyone else. But Jesus does tell his disciples to “love one another.” And Jesus seems to think that the Holy Spirit will enable members of his body to do that. Indeed, that’s how Jesus says other people will know that there is good news for the world - because a church exists where people genuinely love one another. It’s a little scary to say it, but I think John Howard Yoder was right when he said, “Where Christians are not united, the gospel is not true in that place.” [2]

We all inevitably create trouble for the people around us. Not just because all of us are flawed, though we are; it’s also because we are simply different from each other, with different temperaments, and different ideas about how to proceed. And our differences rub up against each other.

There is possibly a place where differences do not rub up against each other. In his book The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis imagines hell as a vast, gray city that spreads out forever, inhabited only at the edges, the enormous center of it filled with millions of vacant houses on endless empty streets. All the houses were once occupied by citizens of hell, who disliked their neighbors and moved, and disliked their new neighbors and moved again and again. Preferring vast distance to dealing with difficulty and difference. [3]

We can’t love each other without some conflict. And we can’t keep loving each other without reaching through conflict to be reconciled. Jesus gives guidance as to how.

ACT I - ONE ON ONE

First: “If a brother or sister sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If they listen - a most important Benedictine, monastic word - if they listen you’ve got back your brother or sister.”

Notice two things:

One, Jesus is talking about people in a covenant relationship. When he says “brother,” he means a member of the family of faith, the church. Maybe an official church, like Crescent Hill Baptist, or an unofficial church, as in friends who live in a covenant of faith, or a family, the church in your house. He is talking to people in a love relationship, and he’s saying these things all for the purpose of staying faithful to each other.

It’s what Benedictine monastics strive for when they take a vow of stability. It is the promise to stay in one place for the rest of your life. Can you imagine in our highly mobile society that sees mobility as a symbol of our freedom, can you imagine deciding that you are going to remain in one place for the remainder of your life?

Whatever could be the benefit of such a vow? Well, Benedict would say that you can only grow in the spiritual life by staying with one community. Where people get to know you through and through and hold you accountable to grow and change. The vow of stability also helps the monastic avoid the temptation to believe that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence in another faith community. [4]

So, this guidance from Jesus on confronting one who lives with us in covenant community is for the purpose of helping us stay faithful to each other.

A second point about this guidance is that it is primarily for serious offenses. It’s not about someone who rubs you the wrong way or disagrees with your position or looks at you funny. It’s about someone who sins against you. Disagreements and annoyances are normal parts of relationship. What mature love does with those is to bear them with patience. But to be sinned against - lied to, betrayed, attacked, abandoned, having someone not live up to their responsibilities to you - this is serious because it has the potential of breaking covenant. And that’s why Jesus says we are to confront it.

And you do it yourself, just you and the other alone, face to face. We keep the matter private. There’s no spreading of the news to others. We must not go about condemning the offender. You don’t gossip about your hurt, but neither do you nurse it in wounded silence. You could do that if it were all about you, but it’s not about you. A relationship is at stake. And not just a personal relationship, but a community covenant relationship. The purpose of this guidance is not to help justify the anger or hurt feelings of the offended but to restore relationship.

So you take the initiative. Isn’t that something? Jesus hands the initiative to the sinned-against. He tells us to make time to talk, one on one, with those who have done us wrong.

We take the initiative because, in some cases, the offender may be unaware of the offense. It is a gesture of reconciliation. The one who has been offended bears the responsibility of initiating reconciliation and mending the breach. The offended is not to sit back and wait for the other to apologize.

If this guidance gives us pause, I think it’s meant to. The very difficulty of deciding to go to someone like this invites us to pause and consider how we ourselves may also have been at fault. Maybe we’ll come to see that the greater sin was our own. Maybe we’ll go and tell them more about our sin than theirs.

David Garland wants us to notice that this call to reprove a fellow Christian is preceded by demands to be humble as a child, to purge one’s one sins, and to seek urgently after the one who strays like a shepherd after a lost sheep, and that it is followed by a demand for unlimited forgiveness. [5]

Barbara Brown Taylor suggests we ask some questions before we proceed, such as: Am I sure I know what I’m talking about? Have I given the other person every benefit of the doubt? What are my motives in confronting her with my feelings? Do I want to make him feel bad, or do I really want peace? And remember, Taylor says, being right is less important than being in relationship. [6]

Those are important questions to ask before pressing on to the difficult task of saying hard truth to people who have sinned against us.

It’s all the harder because of the tone it must take: not castigating or shaming, just telling the truth in love. This is a call for direct confrontation but not verbal abuse. Do you remember those words from Ephesians? “Speak the truth in love. . . Be angry, but do not sin . . .Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up . . . And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” Kindness is the best chance we have of winning back a brother or sister. Scripture says it is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance. And that is the point - not to get something off your chest, or to heal yourself, but to restore relationship. And that’s what makes it a good fight.

Even if harm was done deliberately, your attitude of love and gentleness may very well lead to reconciliation. What matters is repairing the relationship between the two family members. It’s about winning your brother or sister, not winning an argument. It is possible to win the argument and lose your brother.

If the person listens, which would seem to include hearing, accepting, repenting, and perhaps requesting forgiveness, then you have gained your brother or sister back to full relationship, to make the flock whole again.

Sometimes, though, it doesn’t succeed. Some of us don’t listen well, even when we are lovingly confronted with our sins. So Jesus goes on.

ACT II - TWO OR THREE ON ONE

“But of you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by two or three witnesses.”

Now, what is this - a posse? No, this is about people in covenant who aren’t about to give up on each other. To bring witnesses is to convince and persuade not to judge and convict. It’s about how incredibly precious our relationships under God truly are, and how all of us are harmed when even two of us are estranged. Jesus learned this from the Law of Moses in Deuteronomy (19:15).

So, you take one or two with you, and not your best buddies either, maybe their best buddies; but most importantly, one or two people who live in covenant with both of you, helping you both hear and say and see what’s true. It may be that we are wrong and we need wisdom outside ourselves.

But of course, even this can fail.

ACT III - THE CONGREGATION ON ONE

If it does, then Jesus says go ahead and bring in the whole family, the entire congregation. Let all of you stretch toward the healing of a wound and the restoring of relationship. This is the length that covenant love will go to. We’re to go as far as we possibly can for the sake of reconciliation.

Frank Stagg says that these instructions picture a community where every member watches over another, the whole church assumes responsibility for every member, and every member is accountable to the whole church. [7]

To engage the congregation is to get the congregation to exercise its moral influence, not its disciplinary muscle. [8]

The goal of Benedictine discipline “is always meant to heal, never to destroy; to cure, not to crush.” [9]

And the church, Jesus says, must pray together before disciplining the erring person.

And if in the efforts of everyone together, the other refuses to be reconciled, what then?

ACT IV - WHAT TO DO WITH THE UNREPENTANT

Then, Jesus says, “If the offender refuses to listen to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”

This gets to the act of church discipline.

Part of the discipline is to let them go. Honor their freedom. Let them be as separate as they choose to be. Tell the truth about what has broken. Grieve them and let them go. It may seem harsh. It has been used as the basis for that ugliest of words, “excommunication.”

What it’s really about is an utter commitment to the practice of covenant love. So vital is it that when it’s threatened we risk hard conversations, make every attempt to get it back. And it’s so cherished that when it dies, we don’t pretend it hasn’t. This too, in fact, is love for members of the family who won’t reconcile: to accept and formalize their choice to be separate, and to honor love by giving burial to what has died between us.

We often see our sin as a personal matter between ourselves and God or us and the offended party. But it is a matter of the Christian congregation to which we belong, and may damage its life.

These instructions are set in the context not of self-righteous vindictiveness, but of radical caring for the marginal and straying, and of grace and forgiveness beyond all imagining.

This is a people who are to love another so intensely that they refuse to risk the loss of the one who has gone astray - or the loss of ourselves in harboring resentments. [10]

But whatever others do, we don’t stop loving. Not ever. As a matter of fact, did you notice something odd about how Jesus said to treat those who finally refuse all our efforts at reconciliation? He said let them go. But he also said, “Treat them like Gentiles and tax collectors.”

In one sense, treating someone as a Gentile and tax collector means rejection, exclusion, excommunication. In another sense, and quite ironically, it means the radical, offensive inclusion demanded by the gospel itself.

How did Jesus treat Gentiles and tax collectors? He had lunch with them and went to parties with them. He gave covenant love to anyone, and he never broke covenant with anyone, not even with us. And he never set limits on human forgiveness.

Listen to how the Rule of Benedict describes our love for the offender. He writes: The [monastic community, or the church] must exercise the utmost care and concern for the wayward because “it is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick” (Matt 9:12). Therefore they ought to use every skill of a wise physician and send in . . . mature and wise members who . . . may support the wavering sister or brother, urge them to be humble as a way of making [amends], and “console them lest they be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow” (2 Cor 2:7). . . . As the apostle [Paul] says: “Let love be reaffirmed” (2 Cor 2:8), and let all pray for the one who is [not reconciled]. [11]

So my fellow Gentiles, no matter what others may choose to do, as followers of Jesus we are never in position to break covenant love with anyone.

We come to the table of One who never has broken covenant relationship with us. And never will. He reached out to us to the point of death. And is risen and lives among us as we gather together, reaching out to us still, calling us to forgiveness and reconciliation.

___________________________________

1. St. Benedict, The Rule of St. Benedict, ed. Timothy Fry, Vintage Spiritual Classics, 1998, Prologue
2. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today’s Church, Brazos, 2008, 128
3. C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, Simon and Schuster, 1946, 20-21. Barbara Brown Taylor connects Lewis’ vision of hell with Matt 18:15-20 in The Seeds of Heaven, Westminster John Knox, 2004, 87-88
4. Christopher Jamison, Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life, 117
5. David Garland, Reading Matthew, Crossroad, 1993, 190-191
6. Taylor, 88-89
7. Frank Stagg, “Matthew,” Broadman, 184
8. Garland, 191
9. Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict: Insights For the Ages, Crossroad, 1992, 104
10. Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew, Brazos Press, 2006, 165
11. St. Benedict, Chapter 27

August 31, 2008 - "Vows of Community"

2008-09-06T09:56:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 16
August 31, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

Series: The New Monasticism

VOWS OF COMMUNITY

Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c; Romans 12:9-21; Matthew 16:21-28

We continue our conversation on the church as abbey and monastery, and ourselves living as monks and nuns in the world.

Last week we considered Vows of Transformation and Service.

For the next three weeks we will consider Vows of Community.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux called community his greatest penance, punishment for his sins. It can be that difficult. But community is also the only hope for conversion any of us have. It can be our salvation.

Robert Bellah, Parker Palmer, Robert Putnam and other insightful analysts of western, postmodern society have identified loss of community, rampant materialism, and extreme individualism as among the sources of extraordinary stress in the lives of people.

Today many Christians long for more vibrant community, and yet most of us lack the required skills and practices. With our wariness of vows and commitments, and our individualistic and mobile lifestyles, we are not very good candidates for community life. And yet, life in community is central to Christian identity, purpose, and ministry in the world. [1]

The monastic model of community addresses all of these deeply spiritual needs. And they do so in ways that can guide the church as it seeks to develop spiritual health and transformation in the lives of people. It begins with a commitment to community.

Community is holy. The intimate connection of human beings sustains us and challenges us as we seek transformation in the image of Christ.

Tomorrow begins a new ministry in our congregation. We are calling it a Connection Ministry. We have 33 individuals who have agreed to stay in monthly contact with 12 households each for the sole purpose of staying connected as a congregation and making sure we know of needs in the lives of our congregation and seek to meet those needs through prayer and relationship.

To be healthy Christians we need a commitment from others to live in community with us and to make a commitment ourselves to be there for others.

The degree of commitment varies among Christians. The Rule of Benedict describes four types of monastics, which I think can easily relate to four types of Christians and church members.

The first type he calls Cenobites, the best kind of monk. Cenobites are seekers of the spiritual life who live with others in a monastery (or church) under a Rule or covenant. They are not a law unto themselves. They allow the purpose and discipline of community to give aim to their spiritual life, rather than each person doing their own thing. [2]

The second type are called Anchorites or Hermits. They live alone in a monastery outside community. Benedict did not favor this type of monastic. He knew that solitude was crucial to the spiritual life. And he said the only people who should live as hermits are those who have come through the test of living in a monastery for a long time. [3] While community is crucial to transformation, living as a hermit in solitude could be something Christians do from time to time for retreat and reflection, but not as a permanent lifestyle.

A third type are the Sarabites. Benedict describes the Sarabites as the most detestable kind of monastic, who with no experience to guide them and no rule, have a character as soft as lead. Their law is what they like to do, whatever strikes their fancy. [4] They separate themselves from a disciplined life and spiritual guidance and serious purpose in order to concentrate their energies on themselves. They live lives of moderate commitment. They listen to no one’s wisdom but their own. [5] They lack the humility to at least listen to tradition and learn from the lived-out experience of others. [6]

Similar to the Sarabites are the Gyrovagues, who spend their entire lives drifting from region to region in different monasteries (churches). Always on the move, they never settle down, and are slaves to their own wills and gross appetites. [7] They go from community to community, never staying anyplace long enough to be called to accountability by the community. They take from every group they visit but they give little or nothing back. They know how to shop for a monastery or church but they do little to build one. They live off a community but they are never available when the work of maintaining it is necessary.” [8] They are what we might call spiritual shoppers or church hoppers. They run away from commitment to community.

This violates the monastic vow of stability, which involves not simply remaining in one place but a deeper stability, the stability of a mind that stays still and does not endlessly search, constantly switching from one thing to another, hoping for something new or better somewhere else. Whenever anything becomes too demanding they move on to something new. [9]

The kind of community we are looking for is the kind described by Paul in our scripture reading this morning. It’s a description of how we are to live in Christian community, but also how we are to live with those outside Christian community. It is a way of living together characterized by love, peace, goodness, and service.

Paul says, “Let your love be genuine. Love one another with mutual affection.” It is not surprising to find love as central to biblical community. But often we have placed other things as central: political and theological ideology, beliefs, behaviors, similar socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds. Scripture calls us to something deeper than that - a community that is characterized by mutual, genuine love.

It’s been said that home is where one is truly loved. We are seeking to make a home here for weary travelers where all can be loved and cared for. Paul reminds us that love issues forth in action, in physical expressions of care and compassion.

He says, “Contribute to the needs of the saints.” Such a call reminds us of the description of the early church where Luke tells us people would sell what they had and share with those among them so that no one was in need. An essential part of being community is we take care of one another’s needs as cenobites who live in covenant together, not as gyrovagues who only take and never contribute to the community.

Paul calls us beyond ourselves to extend love and community to strangers. It is the primary monastic virtue of hospitality. “Extend hospitality to strangers,” writes Paul. “Proper honor must be shown to all,” wrote Saint Benedict. Namaste. The God in us bows in reverence and honor to the God in others.

Hospitality has been described as “making room inside yourself for another person.” [10]

Maria Russell Kenney makes the observation that hospitality is not found among the spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12, but in our text for today, Romans 12, what is sometimes referred to as the “Conduct for Christian Living.” Some of us appear more “gifted” than others at extending hospitality, like Margaret Graves who said she learned it from Mildred Birch. But like prayer and worship and study, offering hospitality is a spiritual discipline in which we are all called to learn and grow. The fact Margaret said she learned it from someone else reminds us it is more of a spiritual practice to be learned than a spiritual gift to be received. [11]

Hospitality to the stranger is a way of love to which we are all called. There is nothing that would characterize us as a monastic community more than the practice of hospitality.

Many of us are familiar with hospice, that profound ministry of caring for the dying that makes all the difference in the world for the dying and their families. The earlier idea of hospice care was rooted in monastic spirituality, not as care for the dying, but as hospitality to the living. Hospice originally referred to places of rest, food, and companionship offered to pilgrims, travelers, strangers, and those in need. [12]

Chris Rice has written about the transforming power of hospitality to the stranger. I think you will find that his words resonate with our experience. He asks: What will happen as we reach out across divides to the stranger? Mess will surface, both personal and institutional, mess that we’ll have to cry out for the Holy Spirit to touch and heal. Who “our people” are will begin to change, bringing a mixture of joy and fear as strangers become companions. Through a continual interplay of God’s grace and our perseverance, small signs of hope will begin to break in, giving glimpses that the way things are is not the way things have to be. Our vision of transformation will begin to change as we see that the depth of social division and how it has infected our world is deeper than we imagined. In short, what will happen in the exchange with the stranger is that a whole new set of challenges will emerge through which we will have to learn how to be the church.” [13]

I think he’s been living among us for the past eighteen months. Because that’s exactly what is happening to us. And the diversity of our congregation will continue to transform us as individuals and as a community if we will open ourselves to one another, and make room inside ourselves for the stranger, so that strangers become family.

Hospitality transforms and heals. It builds a bridge between enemies and everything else that divides us. [14] Hospitality is an act of peacemaking.

Paul says “Live in peace with one another.” And that’s hard work. How to settle disagreements and seek forgiveness and reconciliation is the topic of conversation for the next two weeks. But before we’re willing to pursue harmony and forgiveness, we must make a vow of promise to community.

We must never forget that God is present among us through one another. One writer put it this way: “The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.” [15]

To live in peace is not a call to ignore evil, but it does mean we respond to evil in ways this world does not understand. You did not hear it this past week at the Democratic National Convention. You will not hear it this week at the Republican National Convention. Neither candidate would get elected if they put forth a Christian perspective on evil and peacemaking.

Paul says, “Hold fast to what is good. Hate what is evil, but do not repay anyone evil for evil.”

Paul Dekar writes some powerful and profound words about evil in the human soul and evil in the world and how we as Christians are to live with it. He says:

We are called not to reject the dark side of the human soul. We are clearly called to discriminate and to choose what is good, what is right, neither to perpetrate evil, nor to cooperate with it by silence or passivity. As long as humans make the error of imagining that evil can be done away with by amputation, coercion, or total war, we will inevitably create more evil. It is in the nature of evil to be against something. If we are set against evil, we will become like it by using its methods and terms. We will create more evil in the very attempt to eradicate it.

(Our torturous treatment of other human beings at Guantanamo prison is a prime example. In our attempt to eradicate evil we perpetuate it.)

God, on the other hand, seeks to save rather than destroy, so God chooses to suffer. God does not perpetrate evil, says Dekar, but experiences evil by suffering, and it this way wrestles with it and overcomes it. The victory of Christ is not that of a warrior with a sword but that of a wrestler who stands his ground. The One who harrows Hell is the Crucified One, covered with wounds but undiminished in mercy and compassion. [16]

Evil makes us angry and rightfully so. But as followers of Christ, we are called to use the energy of anger not in the service of evil but of compassion. [17]

“Bless those who persecute you,” writes Paul.

And “if your enemies are hungry, feed them.”

That is community and hospitality of a new world order. Jesus called it the kingdom of God.

Paul concludes this list of commandments for Christian community with the call to “serve the Lord.” This is crucial because it places the reason for community above our love of community and roots our love for community and our desire for harmony in a greater context.

In his book Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer concluded that “the one who loves their dream of community more than Christian community itself will destroy Christian community.”

Whenever life becomes about me and my ideals, community isn’t possible. If pursuing community itself becomes our aim, we lose the sense of welcome, because receiving the stranger might unsettle our balance. The reason for community is to help us follow Christ and to help us help others live Christlike lives. The reason for our communities must be missional. The reason for our communities must be the ongoing ministry of Christ in the world.

One of the primary virtues of monastic life is that it calls us to a purpose greater than ourselves. It teaches us to put others ahead of ourselves. Only then is community possible.

To live in a monastic community is to find yourself with an ongoing opportunity for genuine Christian love in the practice of acceptance of one another, a place to pursue compassion and selfless love toward each other.

The personal vow of community is to say to one another: “It will be OK. And if it isn’t, you will be OK. Because whatever happens, you have me.” [18]

On our spiritual journey - the journey that really matters the most - we must resist the temptation to go it alone. The fact is: If we want to have life in Christ, we must have life within the body of Christ. It takes a community of faith to raise a Christian. We call it the family of God.
____________________________

1. Jon Stock, Tim Otto, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Inhabiting the Church: Biblical Wisdom for a New Monasticism, Cascade, 2007, , vii
2. Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict: Insights For the Ages, Crossroad, 1992, 31
3. St. Benedict, The Rule of St. Benedict, ed. Timothy Fry, Vintage Spiritual Classics, 1998, chapter 1.
4. Ibid., chapter 1
5. Chittister, 34
6. Esther de Waal, A Life-Giving Way: A Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict, The Liturgical Press, 1995, 19
7. Benedict, chapter 1
8. Chittister, 35
9. de Waal, 20
10. Lonni Collins Pratt and Father Daniel Holman, Benedict’s Way: An Ancient Monk’s Insights For a Balanced Life, Loyola Press, 2000, 69
11. Maria Russell Kenney, “Hospitality to the Stranger,” in Schools For
Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism, Rutba House, 2007, 46-47, 53
12. Paul Dekar, Community of the Transfiguration: The Journey of a New Monastic Community, Cascade, 2008, , 108-109
13. Chris Rice, “Lament For Racial Divisions Within the Church and Our Communities Combined with the Active Pursuit of a Just Reconciliation,” in Schools For Conversion, 62
14. Dekar, 109
15. Dekar, 103
16. Dekar, 112-113
17. Dekar, 101
18. Pratt and Holman, 134

August 24, 2008 - "Vows of Transformation and Service"

2008-08-30T06:17:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 14
August 24, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

Series: The New Monasticism

VOWS OF TRANSFORMATION
AND SERVICE

Exodus 1:8-2:10; Psalm 124; Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20

We continue our consideration of the church as abbey and monastery, living as monks and nuns in the world, with yours truly serving as your abbot.

MONASTIC VOWS

One of the most important things monastics do is take vows. The most well-known vows are: poverty, chastity, and obedience. In the Benedictine tradition the vows are obedience, conversion, and stability (included in those three are poverty and celibacy). We are going to be addressing all these elements of monastic vows, but I want to invite us as a congregation to the Three Vows of Transformation, Service, and Community. We find all three of these described in chapter 4 of Benedict’s Rule.

Esther de Waal writes: “The beauty of the Rule is the way in which the three vows . . . all interrelate . . . They constantly illuminate, deepen and depend on each other.” [1]

Today we’re going to consider Transformation and Service. The following three weeks we will look at vows of Community.

Let’s begin with a brief conversation about vows.

What is a vow? A vow is a commitment a statement or declaration, a pledge, a promise to God or to another person or to a community.

The Bible speaks often of vows. But vows are found not only in the Bible but throughout the ancient Mediterranean. The making of a vow was a way of publicly placing your honor on the line. It was a giving of your word.

VOWS OF CONVERSION / TRANSFORMATION (Romans 12:1-2)

“[The vows] present to people outside of a monastic community . . . three promises that together form one whole process.” [2] The one whole process the vows form is the primary vow - what is called “conversion of life.” It’s what the Christian life is all about.

Benedict and his followers formed a religious order of monks dedicated first and foremost to conversion, a turning to God’s ways. It’s the commitment we make when we enter into the baptismal waters and confess, “Jesus Christ is Lord.”

The word conversion, primarily in evangelical circles, has come to mean a one time moment when you ask Jesus into your heart. The problem with most of us who understand conversion in this way is that we appear no more like Christ in actual practice than anyone else in America. Christians are pretty much like the rest of the culture when it comes to divorce, sexual immorality, and domestic abuse. We don’t stand out as a people set apart, except that we’re more likely to be racist. And the more money we have, the less likely we are to share it with the poor. What we most need are schools for conversion. [3]

Because conversion has negative connotations and makes people think of one-time conversion experiences, I have chosen to call this the Vow of Transformation, and will use the word conversion and transformation interchangeably. And it is a reference to a lifelong journey of change.

Repentance and Transformation: The Call of Jesus and Paul

When Jesus shows up in the Gospels he issues forth a call to “repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”

Paul said, “Do not be conformed to the world. Do not let the world squeeze you into its mold. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Repentance: The First Step Toward Conversion

Repentance is our first step toward conversion in response to God’s grace. It is the good news that another reality is breaking into the world and it demands a fundamental transformation of all who hear it. To be a part of this new world order, this new humanity as Paul calls it, we have to die to ourselves and get “born again” as members of Christ’s body. [4]

Conversion: Metanoia - Change of Heart and Mind

There are two dynamics to repentance: one from the Greek, one from the Hebrew.

The Greek word for repentance - “metanoia” - is about a change of heart and mind. It’s about the renewal of ourselves from the inside out. The mind of Christ is Paul’s word picture for the shape of inner conversion, of what God’s image looks like. Only as we inhabit the mind of Christ do we learn to see what conversion looks like.

Inner conversion means that my false self is dying so that my true self can be given life. Conversion is always about becoming who I really am - a creature created in God’s image. [5]

Conversion: Shuv - Change of Direction

The second dynamic of conversion comes from the Hebrew word for repentance - shuv - which means to turn or return. It’s a physical word, involving bodily movement, especially movement of the feet. To turn toward God is to set one’s feet on a new path, forsaking the road that leads to destruction to walk in the way that leads to life. Conversion is a way of life that must be practiced. [6]

John Stott joins these two dynamics together when he says the Bible demonstrates our need for a double conversion, first out of the world and into Christ, then back into the world with Christ. [7]

So there are internal and external dynamics to conversion.

VOWS OF SERVICE (Romans 12:3-8)

This external dynamic of conversion leads us out into the world with Christ and calls us to make Vows of Service.

Conversion is witnessed in the service that we offer - service in the church as we share our gifts with one another in the Body of Christ - gifts of ministry, teaching, leadership - as well as service as the Body of Christ in the world. The Rule of Benedict (4:14-18) calls us to works of mercy and goodness, to “relieve the poor and clothe the naked and visit the sick and console the sorrowing.”

The church-as-abbey is a church with worship at its heart, but realizes prayer is not enough. We are called to offer hospitality to all and minister to the marginalized, work for peace and justice, and engage the world in mission. Most ministry happens outside the abbey with the abbey serving as a resource of help and hope.

This new monasticism of which we are speaking is not the shaping of what you normally think of as a monastery. It is learning the rhythm of monastic life so that we can better and more faithfully live as God’s people in the world.

At times that service may issue itself in civil disobedience. The lectionary Hebrew lesson for this week (Exodus 1:8-2:10) tells the courageous story of Shiphrah and Puah, the two Hebrew midwives who disobeyed the king of Egypt and refused to kill the baby boys when they were born. It is the first act of civil disobedience found in the Bible. And it reminds us that sometimes our conversion calls us to disobey government and law. There is a political side to our conversion. We are to be a people who stand for peace and justice in the world, especially for the poor.

SPIRITUAL PRACTICES

Compassionate, self-giving service is the proof of an authentic spirituality, the evidence of a mature Christian life. It naturally springs from the heart of monks and nuns in the world. Naturally because the monastic heart has been nurtured and shaped through spiritual practices.

Contemplation

There is the spiritual practice of contemplation. Contemplation is the movement of the self toward union with God. Nurtured deep in the heart, expressed in love for others. Mother Teresa is often cited as an example of one who lived a Christ-like life. Rarely does anyone explain the years of contemplation that Mother Teresa practiced in order to become the kind of person who could serve as Christ served. Contemplation is the way God has opened for us to receive the mind of Christ. [8]

Solitude

Contemplation happens in solitude. Solitude is the place of our own conversion. Ruth Haley Barton says, “In solitude we stop believing our own press.” [9] The practice of solitude.

Study

And there is the spiritual practice of study. Our scripture lesson this morning calls to renew our minds. One way we do this is through study.

Benedictine monks and nuns are traditionally identified with scholarship as well as prayer. One monk titled his book about monastic culture The Love of Learning and the Desire for God [9b]. This congregation shares the same heritage of scholarship. But we must make sure our love of learning is rooted in our desire for God. One way of joining the two is through lectio divina, a prayerful reading of scripture practiced here each Sunday evening.

Celibacy/Chastity

And we really can’t talk about monks and nuns without addressing the spiritual practice of celibacy or chastity. Paul talks about presenting our bodies to God as part of our worship. That means what we do with our bodies matters.

Monks and nuns who enter monasteries take a vow to refrain from sexual relationships. Celibacy is about sexual fidelity as well as abstinence. Celibacy is a curbing of natural desires that allows one to stay focused and faithful. Celibates aren’t alone in learning to say no to sexual impulses. Married people have to do the same if they are going to remain faithful to their vows. Celibacy allows the sexual impulse to be channeled into self-giving love. So does marriage. Just as monks learn lessons in love by practicing celibacy, married people learn about loving by committing to faithfulness in their families. Chastity isn’t just for celibates. [10] And it’s not just about sex.

A couple of years ago I told the story about a birthday party for whores. A grandmother told me later that week she had to explain to her granddaughter what a whore was. And in her great wisdom, that grandmother told her granddaughter, “A whore is someone who does something for money that they should do for love.” It’s the best definition I’ve ever heard because it makes the word more expansive than sexuality.

So we’ve talked about the spiritual practices of contemplation, solitude, study, and chastity. There are others we will address throughout this Fall.

But speaking of spiritual disciplines, Annie Dillard says, God does not require nor demand them. You do not have to do these things - unless you want to know God. They work on you, not on God. You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it. [11]

TRANSFORMATION AND SERVICE:
PERSONAL MATURITY AND SPIRITUAL GROWTH

We engage in spiritual practices to grow and mature as human beings made in the image of God. Conversion is a personal commitment to facing up to the demands of growth and change in our lives. Maturity comes only by confronting what has to be confronted within ourselves. [12]

As the church we must be intentional about why we meet together. We are here for the purpose of personal transformation in the image of Christ for the sake of the world. And to do so in community. If we’re not intentional we forget why we are here. “We become consumers of religion rather than cultivators of a spiritual life.” [13]

At times the church has been known to make the way of Jesus seem less demanding - no sacrifice, no giving of self, no change required - in order to help spur church growth. We want to do things to attract people and make them feel comfortable, and the teachings of Jesus don’t always do that.

Monasteries also have to be about the business of recruiting new monks, which gets tougher and tougher in today’s society, as vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience are not rising in the polls as preferred lifestyle choices.

One day a perspective recruit shows up at a monastery and is warmly welcomed with the generosity of Benedictine hospitality. He is chauffeured around the monastery grounds in a shiny new car; he’s presented with a lovely keepsake at the monastery gift shop; at dinner he is lavishly served a fine feast at the head table with the abbot and prior; and all this is followed by a nice after-dinner drink in the monastery recreation room. Finally, as it is time to go, the young recruit is asked if there is anything more he’d like to do or see to help him with his decision. “Yes,” replies the young man, “If this is poverty, show me chastity!” [14]

CONCLUSION

While there is an attraction to the way of Jesus - living for something greater than yourself - it is a costly and demanding way. It is the way of transformation and service.

The call to transformation is a call to grace. The daily confession of monks and nuns is this: “Everyday I say to myself - Today I will begin again.” Transformation is the work of God’s grace within us.

Some of us will wear ourselves out trying to change ourselves before we realize that it is not about fixing what is wrong, but about letting go of old patterns that no longer serve us well. [15]

Monks vow themselves to conversion of life. They promise that whatever happens, they will keep themselves on the hard course of becoming more authentically human and Christlike. That’s conversion. Shutting the door to yesterday and starting over, every single day of your life.[16]

Transformation is a very slow business if it is to be authentic. It’s purpose, says John Calvin, is to restore in us the image of God that has been disfigured. This restoration does not take place in one moment or one day or one year. It is the work of God is us throughout our lives, ending only at death.

The good news of the gospel isn’t that you’re OK and I’m OK, but that we are accepted by God as we are and that God can transform us all into the people we were made to be. It’s not that you can be whatever you want to be, but that you are free to grow up with God’s people into the full stature of Christ.

Personal transformation, living in community, serving Christ in the world. That is our calling.

_________________________

1. Esther de Waal, Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict, Liturgical Press, 2001, 55
2. Esther de Waal, A Life-Giving Way: A Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict, The Liturgical Press, 1995, , ix
3. Jon Stock, Tim Otto, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Inhabiting the Church: Biblical Wisdom for a New Monasticism, Cascade, 2007, 27-28
4. Ibid., 27
5. Ibid., 33
6. Ibid., 29-30
7. Quoted in Andy Freeman and Pete Greig, Punk Monk: New Monasticism and the Ancient Art of Breathing, Regal, 2007, 111

8. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, “Commitment to a Disciplined Contemplative Life,” in Schools For Conversion: 12 Marks of a New Monasticism, Rutba House, 2007, 164-167
9. Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Zondervan, 2008, 51
9b. Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture, Fordham University Press, 1982
10. Lonni Collins Pratt and Father Daniel Holman, Benedict’s Way: An Ancient Monk’s Insights For a Balanced Life, Loyola Press, 2000, 60-61
11. Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk, Harper and Row, 1982
12. De Waal, Seeking God, 75, 78
13. Dennis Okholm, Monk Habits For Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants, Brazos, 2008, 35
14. Linus Mundy, A Retreat with Benedict and Bernard: Seeking God Alone - Together, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1998, 89
15. Barton, 53
16. Pratt and Holman, 121

August 17, 2008 - "On Being Monks and Nuns in the World"

2008-08-26T21:01:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 14
August 17, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

Series: THE NEW MONASTICISM

ON BEING MONKS AND NUNS IN THE WORLD: THE CHURCH AS ABBEY AND MONASTERY
Genesis 45:1-15; Psalm 133; Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32; Matthew 15:10-20

A Personal Word

I want to begin this morning with a personal word about my own life. Like so many of you, my life is full of responsibility and demand. With work and family and a desire to make a difference in our community, our minds and our bodies can become exhausted. Over the past few years, I have become increasingly frustrated with my ability to do what I feel I need to do and at the same time to live the life God is calling me to live in the way God is calling me to live it. I don’t believe I am alone in this struggle. I think there’s always been just enough selfishness within me and sense about me that I don’t do myself in completely by trying to do everything.

About five years ago I turned my Sabbath from Friday into Monday because come Friday there was always something still to do - a visit to make, a sermon to prepare. And I have been pretty good about reserving Monday for relaxation usually in a bookstore somewhere. But Tuesday through Sunday is where the struggle comes in. My life often feels scattered and disordered. My spiritual life at times seems empty. And I don’t believe that’s how God wants any of us to live.

About three years ago I made my first trip to a monastery, St. Meinrad’s Abbey, northwest of here in Indiana. I lived for a week in the beauty and serenity of that place, and even fantasized about life as a monk.

A little over a year ago I stumbled upon several books about monastic spirituality. And though I’ve not been able to put as much of it into practice as I would like, I have found myself being drawn to the order and rhythm of monastic spirituality, and I want to share some of that with you.

I want us to spend this Fall learning from the monastery how to order our lives and in a sense live as monks and nuns in the world. The thought of my daughters becoming nuns excites me. The idea of my wife becoming a nun - not so much!

I also want us to think about how our church could be a reflection of an abbey or monastery. And I want to spend some time this morning trying to explain what I mean.

The Monastic Movement

It is often assumed that monks and nuns enter monasteries to escape the world and that their lifestyles are completely irrelevant to life in the real world. However, monasteries began around the fourth century when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and authentic Christianity was replaced by nationalism and the church pledged its allegiance to the state.

Individual Christians took off for the desert because the church and culture were so corrupt, the desert was the only place they could grow as human beings and reflect the image of God. It was not otherworldly as much as it was counter-cultural.

Throughout history, the church has often reflected the culture so much, endorsing the government’s self-serving policies of progress and empire, you could no longer tell the difference between the church and the culture. The church really offered no alternative to culture’s greed and excessive individualism.

Protestants often look back to Martin Luther calling a corrupt church to truth and faithfulness. But we easily forget he was a monk who learned the gospel he preached in a monastery. We forget that much of the so-called Protestant Reformation was driven by the monastic impulse. [1]

The Anabaptist vision from which we spring has monastic roots as they called for voluntary membership in community, a common way of life, a disciplined pursuit of holiness, and leaders elected by the community. They wanted a church that looked like a monastery. [2]

In 1930, German pastor, theologian, and prisoner Dietrich Bonhoeffer experienced in Germany what happens when the church weds itself to the state. And he said, “The restoration of the church will surely come from a sort of new monasticism with the uncompromising attitude of a life lived according to the Sermon on the Mount in the following of Christ.”

In every era God has raised up new monastics to pledge their allegiance to God alone and remind the church of its true vocation. Monasticism has served as a renewal movement for the church, calling it back to faithful living, helping the church be the church by recovering its life and witness in the world.

There is a great deal of writing these days about what Bonhoeffer called “a new monasticism.”

Over the past several years, new monastic communities have been forming all over the world in England, Australia, North Carolina, San Francisco, Memphis, and just down the road in Lexington, Kentucky. Some who live in these monastic communities live together in large houses. Some live in the same geographical area. Most of them have relocated into areas of poverty. Most of them work regular jobs. Some live from a common purse, making sure no one among them is in need, like the early church described in the book of Acts. Others share their possessions in other ways. What they most share in common is a desire to escape the prison of materialism and greed and individualism and make sure everyone has the basic necessities of life. These are communities centered in prayer and discernment. And most make decisions by consensus.

There are monasteries in many different religious traditions - Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, and non-denominational. As I was studying this new monasticism I came upon a Baptist monastery in Australia, Holy Transfiguration Monastery (or HTM), which is connected to a local Baptist church and is a member of its local Baptist association. They uphold traditional Baptist principles of the centrality of scripture, religious freedom, priesthood of the believer, and a personal relationship with God. Paul Dekar, a professor of religion at Memphis Theological Seminary is a Baptist and a covenant member of that Australian Baptist monastic community.

Imagine my surprise when I read that in October 2006, members of that monastic community traveled to a place on the Thai side of the border between Burma and Thailand and engaged Karen refugees in conversation and partnership. [3]

Monastic Spirituality: Personal and Communal

So now, what is the nature of this monastic spirituality that binds these communities together? And what do they have to say to us as we ponder what a congregational monasticism might look like? And how can such a spirituality renew our own personal lives?

These are the questions we will we seeking to answer in the weeks ahead, but in our remaining time together I want to give you some idea of what a monastic spirituality is and what it has to say to us.

In his book A Monk In the World Wayne Teasdale writes, “Without doubt, there is great value in spirituality that emphasizes and supports withdrawal from society. But in our time, with its special needs, we require a spirituality of intense involvement and radical engagement with the world. It is in the world that people live their busy lives, and it is in the world that the wisdom of the monks must be made accessible.” [4]

The Rule of Benedict

All monastic communities are bound together by a rule of life or covenant. The most significant monastic rule is The Rule of St. Benedict. [5]

Before I share the nature of Benedict’s Rule, it might help overcome our resistance to a daily rule that governs our lives by acknowledging that we each have a rule of life whether we know it or not. It may be as simple as getting out of bed, picking up the paper, eating breakfast, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, getting dressed, waking the children, going to work, checking your emails, the routine of the work day, coming home, eating dinner, changing clothes, putting the kids to bed, watching TV, reading a book, going to sleep - or some variation thereof. It is our rule, the pattern for our living. The question is: Are we guided by a healthy, balanced, integrated rule and pattern for living?

Benedict wrote in an age that was, in many ways, a world not unlike our own. Benedict was born around the year 480. Rome was sacked for a second time in 455, and in 476 the last emperor was deposed. He grew up watching the demise of the Roman Empire, years of social and economic insecurity. Order had broken down. Institutions that had worked in the past were collapsing. The securities on which people believed they could count were crumbling. Markets were failing, and there was a huge social imbalance by which the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. The Church too was being torn apart by internal disputes. [6] Any of that sound familiar?

Saint Benedict entered his cave in Subiaco seeking to make sense of his Christian commitment and to discern God’s way in a torn-apart, troubled society pervaded by a sense of chaos and meaninglessness. Benedict chose to simplify his life in order to be more available to God, to listen and to learn the way of Truth. [7]

Borrowing from previous Rules of other communities, Benedict penned his own Rule, the most famous by far, and it has been guiding monastic communities and personal lives for almost 1500 years. I have one here in my hand. It is a small guide of roughly 9000 words serving to give shape to particular monastic communities. It also has much to say to those who do not live in monasteries.

“The Rule of Benedict is a commentary on the gospel, and it is woven out of quotations from the Bible.” [8] Benedict begins his Rule with a quote from the Psalms: Is there anyone here who yearns for life and desires to see good days? (Psalm 34:12) [9]. What a beautiful invitation!

The Rule calls us to ask the question: “What kind of life does my heart want?” [10] Buechner says, “We live our lives in search for a self to be, for other selves to love, and for work to do.”

Here is a spirituality that helps us in that search, grounded in questions that are inescapable: How do I live with myself? How do I live with others? How do I relate to the world around me? How do I find time and space for God? [11] “How do I grow and fulfill my true self? Where can I find healing and grow into wholeness? [12] Am I being changed by the power of the Gospel? Am I being changed by the presence of God in my life?” [13]

Thomas Merton, the most famous of monks in the past few hundred years, who spent his monastic life just down the way in Gethsemani, Kentucky, said the whole purpose of the monastic life is to teach people to live by love. [14] Ultimately that is [Benedict’s] question to each of us: Am I daily becoming a more loving person? [15]

Benedict deals with so many issues that touch our lives today: attitudes toward work, the need for recreation, appropriate quantities of food and drink, adequate rest, respect for one another, time for silence, the place of study in order to grow as faithful Christians, and a willingness to listen attentively to other members of the community so that shared wisdom and gifts enrich all. [16]

Billy Joel sings that he doesn’t know why he goes to extremes. [16a] We can relate to what he’s saying. Many of us often wonder what’s wrong inside of us that keeps us from getting a grip on ourselves.

Benedict can help. Five activities are rhythmically woven together in one chapter of the Rule - prayer, work, rest, study, and eating - all to be done in proper measure. Benedict prohibited extremes. He says, “Moderation in all things except in zeal for Christ.”

A high school girl back from a week at a Christian camp and told her father that she knew it was time to come down from the mountaintop and enter back into the real world. Her wise father answered her, “You were in the real world!” That is, the mountaintop experience of Christian community that she found at camp more closely approximated the world as God intended it at creation. What we have made of “the world” into which that young girl reentered after camp is not the way it was meant to be. In fact, most of us in “the world” live on the surface of life without really knowing the true depth of life.

So to those who would say that the monastery is not the “real world,” one could say that the monastic life actually takes us far deeper into the real world than life outside the monastery. It is certainly more significant than flipping hamburgers eight hours a day and asking customers if they want to super-size that, or spending four hours a day the average American does watching television. Is the monastic balanced life, which puts possessions and relationships and the life of the soul in proper perspective, less real than our consumptive preoccupation with gadgets, television, celebrities, war, and spirit-numbing work? Who has distorted reality? Who lives in the real world? The monk or the materialist? [17]

It has been said that the Rule’s strength is “to be a witness to normalcy.” [18]

Mike Yaconelli said, “What keeps many of us from spiritual growth is not sin but speed.” [19] And in a world that keeps asking us to go higher and faster, how do we begin to go deeper, into the place where God lives and moves and has his being within us? [20]

Benedict insists that since body, mind, and spirit together make up the whole person the daily pattern of life in the monastery should involve time for prayer (for the spirit), time for study (for the mind), and time for manual work (for the body). All three should command respect and all three should equally become a way to God. The days of Benedictine monks are patterned on the rhythmic succession of these three elements: prayer, study, work. Four hours each day were devoted to liturgical prayer, four to spiritual reading, and six to manual work. It is surprising to many that monks actually spend more time in manual labor than prayer. The framework of each day is shaped by the opus Dei, the saying of the offices, daily prayer, the worship of God, which is at the center of the monastic life. [21]

Journey Inward, Journey Outward - Alone and in Community

Christians yearn for a way of life that is whole and holy, a form of life that is rooted in Christ and deeply connected with others. [22]

Monasticism, old and new, leads us on a “journey inward, journey outward” - alone and in community. There is the inward journey toward prayer and solitude, study and contemplation; and the outward journey pointing us toward mission in the world through lives of service, compassion, and the work for social justice.

Elizabeth O’Connor said that we make the journey inward so that we can make the journey outward. She was talking about our being drawn to a deeper sense of communion with God that will somehow equip us and strengthen us and shape us so that we might be more like the Christ that we are to be for those who are given to us. If there is not time set aside for the journey inward, then there will soon be not enough energy left for the journey outward. [23]

Living as “active contemplatives” is the balanced role most monastics communities strive for. [24]

Other Rules/Covenants of New Monastic Communities

Monastic communities have not all been uniform. They have been shaped by the historical circumstances in which they live. But common to them all is a rule of life or covenant that binds them to one another and shapes their life together as they seek a faithful life, deepening their own relationships with God, with others, and in service to the world.

These rules of life are marked by the rhythm of the early church where we read in the book of Acts they were devoted to the apostles’ teachings and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. They impacted the city around them, enjoying the favor of all the people (which would have been the poor), and many others were joining them.

Holy Transfiguration Monastery (HTM) in Australia is a community rooted in
- prayer
- Bible study
- accountability in the use of time and money
- working for peace, justice, and the integrity of creation.

At the heart of its vision, the Caritas Community in Memphis, Tennessee seeks:
- to form relationships with neighbors and experience their joys, celebrations, and struggles;
- to help all people - not just Christians - to recognize how God is working in their lives;
- to assist members of the neighborhood open to empowering themselves;
- to identify and develop the leadership capabilities of the people;
- to assist in the spiritual transformation of the neighborhood;

- and to establish and encourage partnerships that will provide economic opportunities in the neighborhood. [25]

A monastic community in Melbourne, Australia made up of members from Clifton Hill Baptist Church identified four principles that would shape their common life:
- a community whose devotion is centered on Jesus Christ,
- members who acknowledge their dependence on God’s grace and seek to share it with others,
- a community that exists for the sake of others, notably, “the little people of the world,”
- members who understand community as a place where they can discover their God-given gifts, develop them, and use them within the context of the community’s developing mission in the world. [26]

Pete Greig from England has put out a call for “third millennium monasteries”
- where people would pray 24-7
- where the poor would be served,
- the gospel shared
- and arts and hospitality practiced. [27]

These are Christian communities that desire to be places of prayer, mission and justice centered on Jesus. They know prayer without mission is empty. Missionary C. T. Studd said, “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bells - I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” A monastic model of an abbey church allows us to do both. There are the bells that call us as monastics to prayer. And there are the cries of the suffering and poor that call us to engage the world with the good news.

Monasticism has much to offer people who live their lives outside a monastery:
- a rhythm to life of prayer, study, rest, and work,
- a strong sense of community
- a lifelong commitment to conversion and transformation

As followers of Jesus we are all of us seeking a rhythmic life of prayer, study, rest, and work in community with the goal of personal transformation in the image of Christ for the sake of the world.

Monasticism provides a model for us.

A Baptist Abbey in Crescent Hill?

So: Is it possible for a congregation like ours to serve as a new monastic community? A type of congregational monasticism? Could we be a Baptist Abbey here in Crescent Hill?

I am drawn to the monastic image of congregational life for a couple of reasons:

One is personal. I love monasteries and I need the rhythm it provides. My life too often feels chaotic, and I think the monastery has something to teach us about creating a rhythm to our lives in a world outside a traditional monastery.

And two, we are as a congregation more contemplative in nature. So are monasteries. And I think many of us would feel at home there. However, the monastic life can also stretch us because monks and nuns spend more time in actual work and service to others than they do in prayer.

To become monks and nuns and to establish an abbey and monastery here is not to cloister us in from the world. It is a place where we learn to listen to the voice of God, intentionally give ourselves over to transformation, live in community, as a witness to the kingdom of God, seeking to transform the world.

I do not know where this will take us. I only know it is a place I am feeling led. I am longing and I sense among you a longing for transformation and a desire to minister in our community.

I want to invite those of you who would like to consider engaging in personal monastic practices to join me in a small group exercise this fall. Send me an email or give me a call this week if you are interested.

The Communal Nature of a Faithful Spirituality

Let us never forget the communal nature of monastic spirituality. Rare is the monk who spends his day alone. It is about living in community and sharing a common life. That’s because of the communal nature to scripture: almost all the you’s are plural. The New Testament calls us to be a holy priesthood. The psalmist proclaims, “How good and pleasant and beautiful it is when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity.”

The “Mon” in Monasticism: Seeking God

Monasticism is also deeply personal.

I think for most if not all of us, there is a monk soul deep inside longing to be fed. It is that solitary place in every human soul. Monasticism isn’t about achieving some sort of individual or communal piety. The “mon” in monasticism points to one purpose, singleness of heart, which is seeking God.

We don’t come to a church or a monastery to follow techniques and methods and schedules; we come to seek and find God. [28]

Prayer. Work. Silence. Simplicity. Solitude. Humility. Conversion. Community. Faithfulness. These are stepping stones on our path of seeking God. [29]

The prophet Jeremiah said: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls” (6:16).

So, in the words of St. Benedict: Let us set out on this way with the Gospel as our guide. [30]

_________________________

1. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, New Monasticism: What It Has to Say to Today’s Church, Brazos, 2008, 51
2. Ibid., 52
3. Paul Dekar, Community of the Transfiguration: The Journey of a New Monastic Community, Cascade, 2008, 62
4. Wayne Teasdale, A Monk in the World, New World Library, 2002, xxii
5. St. Benedict, The Rule of St. Benedict, ed. Timothy Fry, Vintage Spiritual Classics, 1998.
6. Esther de Waal, A Life-Giving Way: A Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict, The Liturgical Press, 1995, vii, x
7. Elizabeth Canham, Heart Whispers: Benedictine Wisdom For Today, Abingdon, 1999, 56-57
8. Abbot Christopher Jamison, Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life, Liturgical Press, 2006, 7
9. St. Benedict, Prologue, 14-16
10. Canham, 149
11. de Waal, vii
12. Esther de Waal, Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict, Liturgical Press, 2001, 29
13. de Waal, A Life-Giving Way, x
14. Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton, New Directions, 1975, 333
15. de Waal, Seeking God, 13
16. Canham, 12
16a. Billy Joel, Storm Front album, "I Go to Extremes", 1989.
17. Dennis Okholm, Monk Habits For Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants, Brazos, 2008, 31-32
18. de Waal, Seeking God, 92
19. Mike Yaconelli, Messy Spirituality, Zondervan, 2002, 96
20. Robert Benson, A Good Life: Benedict’s Guide to Everyday Joy, Paraclete Press, 2004, 5
21. de Waal, Seeking God, 89
22. Jon Stock, Tim Otto, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Inhabiting the Church: Biblical Wisdom for a New Monasticism, Cascade, 2007, viii
23. Benson, 40-41
24. Linus Mundy, A Retreat with Benedict and Bernard: Seeking God Alone - Together, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1998, 60
25. Dekar, 25
26. Ibid., 37
27. Andy Freeman and Pete Greig, Punk Monk: New Monasticism and the Ancient Art of Breathing, Regal, 2007, 53
28. Mundy, 39
29. Mundy, 105
30. St. Benedict, Prologue

August 10, 2008 - "Walking on Water"

2008-08-12T20:56:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 13
August 10, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

WALKING ON WATER

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28; Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b;
Romans 10:5-15; Matthew 14:22-33

When I called Andrea this week to ask if she would read the scripture lesson in worship, I told her it was the story of Jesus and Peter walking on water, and since that is what we are expecting her to do, it was only appropriate that she read the text. And she still agreed to do so. Andrea, I’m just kidding. Mostly.

It is quite an interesting story, this walking on water adventure. It raises questions in many a modern mind. And most of us are familiar with the explanations offered to make the story more believable: Jesus was really walking on the shore, or he was walking where the water was shallow, or (my favorite) he knew where the rocks were.

New Testament scholar Eugene Boring (an unfortunate name for a scholar) puts forth a rather interesting way to look at this story. He calls us to think of this story from a post-Easter perspective as a resurrection appearance of Jesus strategically placed by Matthew at the very center of his gospel. There are notable similarities between this story and other resurrection appearances in the gospels:

There are the disciples out in the boat seeing Jesus on the shore and Peter jumping out of the boat to come to Jesus.

There is the feeling that Jesus is a ghost just like his appearance to the disciples on Easter evening.

We have the disciples worshiping Jesus, which they do at the end of Matthew’s gospel when Jesus utters the Great Commission.

Even those familiar Easter words: “Do not be afraid; it is I.” [1]

We don’t always know exactly how to read the miracle stories in the gospels. But if we could, let us for this morning suspend disbelief and simply enter into the story and listen for God’s word to us.

Following the feeding of the 5000, Jesus tells the disciples to get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side. He wants to get away for awhile and pray. Even Jesus needed to pray. So he sends the disciples away and dismisses the crowd. Night falls, and he is finally alone.

But he’s not alone for long. The text doesn’t even tell us he is able to begin praying before a storm has arisen. And he looks out across the lake and sees the disciples’ boat is far from shore and being literally tortured by the waves with the wind against them.

What we have here, says Tom Long, is a symbolic picture of the church - disciples in a boat, called by God, and sent out on to a dangerous, unpredictable sea. The boat is battered by waves and fights the wind as it struggles toward a difficult landfall. How often the church finds itself working and struggling to be faithful in perilous times! [2]

So here are the disciples being tossed around the sea in the middle of a storm. Then Jesus comes to them. But it says he comes to them “early in the morning,” and that the storm began “when evening came.”

Did Jesus leave them out there awhile before going to rescue them? Did Jesus need to pray longer in order to have the strength to save them? Or does “early in the morning” mean something else?

I don’t know what you hear, and I could be making more of it than is really there, but it sounds like Easter to me. Especially following a scene where bread had been broken and shared. “Early in the morning” could be Matthew’s way of speaking life and divine presence in the face of fear and death.

Whatever it may mean, “early in the morning” is a time when it is still dark. It fact, it is the darkest hour of the night.

In the monastic rhythm of daily prayer called the Service of the Hours, the first prayer of the day is called Vigils. Monks walk under the stars in the pre-dawn dark to the church. It is also known as Matins, the night-watch, the times, says Brother David Stendle-Rast, of “learning to trust the darkness.” [3]

You ever been in those kinds of storms where you’ve had to learn to trust the darkness? You’ve been told that Jesus is always there, but sometimes it’s too dark to see and you just have to trust. Scary times.

When Jesus gets close enough to the disciples’ boat, they see him, but they think it’s a ghost, and they cry out in fear. Wouldn’t you? I mean, who’s expecting to see somebody out in the middle of the lake without a boat?

And Jesus, who knows their fear, says to them, “Take heart. Do not be afraid. I AM.”

Just as God named himself to Moses in the burning bush, so Jesus identifies himself as the great “I AM,” the “I AM” who, the psalmist says, “provides a way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters” (Ps 77:19).

In the person of Jesus, God is walking on the waters, present in the midst of storms to save us through the storms.

And Peter, who always has the initial courageous impulse to go where no one has gone before, says, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”

And Jesus says, “Come on.”

And for a moment, Peter is able to walk toward his Lord on the wind-blown waters. It’s yet another picture of what discipleship is all about - obeying Jesus, acting courageously, moving toward Jesus confidently even in the teeth of a storm.

Peter is often criticized for having little faith, but he does ask Jesus to command him to come to him. Peter begins his journey across the water toward Jesus with the recognition that this is not something he can do on his own initiative. Peter’s faith is little, but he at least is beginning to recognize that faith is obedience. [4] And so he takes a step of faith no one else is willing to take toward the Christ who calls him.

Some of you have taken that step. You have left what is known and risked your life to serve God in Russia, Israel, Japan, Costa Rica, Thailand, America. May Say shared her faith story with us last Wednesday night. She told how she felt called to be a missionary. She initially did not want to leave Thailand and come to America. But she told God that if God wanted her to be a missionary to America, she would go. And here she is, along with many Karen brothers and sisters, being the presence of Christ to Crescent Hill Baptist Church and the city of Louisville and in places all over the world.

When I think of what we are trying to do here - live in community together as brothers and sisters in Christ - despite barriers of language and culture - it is astounding. You should hear people throughout CBF and other friends of mine when they hear of what we are doing.

Yes, it would be much easier for us to worship and serve God separately as two different congregations, each of us in our own language. But our efforts to worship and serve together give witness to the unity of the Body of Christ, and in the process of a unity that God is joining together, we are enriched and changed in ways that would be impossible otherwise. We have stepped out of the security of the boat, moving in faith toward Jesus.

And as long as we keep our eyes focused on the One who calls us to risk ourselves in faith, we may just find ourselves walking on water, taking part in the miraculous work of God among us.

The other option is to give in to the fear of the wind and sink like a rock. Or worse, just stay in the boat, too afraid to risk ourselves at all. Or worse than that, never get in the boat to begin with.

Peter is to be commended for his willingness and courage to do only what could be done with God’s help. But he is also a reminder that we must not give in to the fear around us. Peter does not begin to sink and then become frightened; he becomes frightened and then begins to sink.

As he begins to sink, he cries for help and Jesus reaches out his hand to lift him up. When Jesus catches him, he asks Peter why he doubted. I don’t think this was a blaming or shaming word. I think Jesus, like any good teacher, wanted Peter to learn from this experience so that he could grow. And by the looks of Peter preaching at Pentecost I think it worked. Soon Jesus will rename Simon as Peter and declare that “on this rock” that at the moment was sinking, Jesus’ church will be built. But first he failed.

Herman Melville said, “[The one] who has never failed somewhere, that [person] cannot be great. Failure is the test of greatness.”

And yet, we do not often see failure as a step on the road to greatness. But if Melville is right, I don’t know about you, but it gives me new hope.

In writing about this story, Barbara Brown Taylor says we might think it would have been a better story if the disciples had all gotten out of the boat and walked on water. But she says that would not have rang as true as this version of risk and failure. The truth about us, she says, is that we obey and fear, we walk and sink, we believe and doubt. Our faith and our doubt exist in us at the same time. [5] Even after Pentecost, Peter will fail again.

Jesus lifts Peter in all his faith and doubt and leads him back to the boat with the other disciples. And once Jesus gets in the boat with them, the wind calms and ceases.

It is hard to read the gospels and not realize that we are called to live risky lives that lead to a cross and include failure. Everything is risky, whether we stay in the boat or get out of the boat. And the fear will never go away as long as we seek to follow Jesus.

The most common command in scripture - do you know it? - is “Fear not; do not be afraid.” I think “fear not” appears so much in scripture because fear is the number one reason we are tempted to avoid doing what God asks us to do.

Many of us learned about fear in our families. What did Mom say when you went outside to play or left for school? It is the rare mom who says, “Take risks today, sweetheart. Embrace danger. Look just one way when you cross the street.” Moms want us to be safe.

But not Jesus. He sends us out in a boat that seems small and frail with great ocean water swelling all around us. Duke ethicist Stanley Hauerwas puts it this way: “Often the church finds herself far from shore and threatened by strong winds and waves. Those in the boat often fail to understand that they are meant to be far from shore and that to be threatened by a storm is not unusual. If the church is faithful she will always be far from shore. And at times we will be commanded to leave the safety of the boat to walk on water.” [6]

At times we may be called to do extraordinary things that call us to risk something big for something good. Things that may seem foolish to us and to the rest of the world, but a calling from God nevertheless.

And every time we get out of the boat, our God gets a little bigger and our faith a little stronger.

We would do well to ask ourselves as a congregation: What are we doing that we could not do apart from the power of God?

We can even ask ourselves on a personal level: What am I doing that I could not do apart from the power of God?

Imagine at the end of your life watching a video of all that God might have done with your life if you had followed and trusted.

Imagine at our church’s bicentennial, a hundred years from now, our descendants watching a video of all God might have done through our church if we had followed and trusted.

The way we live as individuals and as a congregation is a consequence of the size of our God. For many of us our God is too small.

There is a word for the process by which human beings come to perceive the greatness and strength of God. It is called worship. It is what the disciples did when Jesus got into the boat with them and calmed the storm. We need to worship because without it we can forget that we have a Big God beside us and live in fear. We need to worship because without it we can forget God’s calling and begin to live in a spirit of self-preoccupation and self-preservation. [7]

When people and churches get out of the boat, they are never quite the same. Their worship is never quite the same. Their world is never quite the same. Whether they sink or swim, something will have changed. Jesus is still looking for people who will dare to trust him, who will refuse to allow their fear to have the final word, who refuse to be deterred by failure. [8]

Do you want to be safe or brave? You simply cannot be both.

If we choose bravery and pray for God’s Spirit to plunge us on with hope and courage, let us do so with God’s word spoken through the prophet Isaiah carved into the side our boat and written upon our hearts:

When you pass through the waters I will be with you,
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.
For I am the Lord your God, your Savior.
I have redeemed you.
I have called you by name.

And you are mine.
Amen.

_____________________________

1. Eugene Boring, “Matthew,” The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VIII, Abingdon, 1995, 329
2. Thomas G. Long, Matthew, Westminster John Knox, 1997, 166
3. Quoted in sermon by H. Stephen Shoemaker, “Walking on Water,” May 4, 2008
4. Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew, Brazos Press, 2006, 141
5. Barbara Brown Taylor, “Saved by Doubt,” The Seeds of Heaven, Westminster John Knox, 2004, 60
6. Hauerwas, 141
7. John Ortberg, If You Want to Walk on Water You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat, Zondervan, 2001, 194, 196
8. Ibid., 202-203

July 20, 2008 - "Surrounded by the Holy"

2008-07-22T21:04:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 10
July 20, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SURROUNDED BY THE HOLY
Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24;
Romans 8:12-25; Matthew 13:24-30

PSALM 139
O Lord you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there.
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover,
and the light around me become night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Today’s psalm, Psalm 139, carries within its power the possibility of leaving the reader to be terribly frightened beyond belief or securely loved beyond measure.

To hear that God knows everything about us and sees everything we do can give us an image of God as Watchdog, looking over our shoulder, ready to catch us and punish us when we mess up. It would perhaps replay the tapes from our childhood that said with a pointed finger, “God is watching you!” To live with that image of God can lead us into terrible fright, leaving us perhaps beyond the capacity to believe that we are securely loved by God beyond measure.

But that doesn’t seem to be the Spirit of the psalmist who gave us Psalm 139, the words used by Hilary and Chris and Emily to sing us into worship this morning.

For the psalmist to know of God’s all-pervasive presence and knowledge of her every word, thought, and step is something the psalmist describes as too wonderful for her.

The psalmist invites God to search him and know him and test him and to cleanse him of any wicked way so that he might be led in the everlasting way.

This all-pervasive presence and knowledge of God is a good and beautiful thing because God is not a Watchdog, looking over our shoulder, ready to catch us and punish us when we mess up. No.

God is more of a caring Mother who knows what you need before you ask and keeps a careful eye upon you. And when you do mess up, She will catch you alright; She will catch you in the strongest most tender of hands to hold you and lead you, and to be the light in your darkness.

“Even the darkness is not dark to You,” sings the psalmist. “The night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to You.”

We all want to believe in that kind of God, don’t we? We all want to believe in a God whose presence surrounds our every step, who knows us through and through, with loving hands beneath us, tender arms around us, and shining face above us.

And there are days when it is as easy to believe in that kind of God, as easy as closing our eyes and breathing in God’s love.

There are also days when God seems so far away, no loving hands beneath us, no tender arms around us, no shining face above us. Darkness has covered us and the light around us dark as midnight. In the depths of despair we make our bed and God seems nowhere to be found.

It was in a moment of despair streaming from his own deceit, that Jacob made his bed all alone in a place called Luz. He was running for his life from his brother Esau, from whom he had stolen birthright and blessing.

During the night Jacob had a dream. One would have expected a nightmare for such a deceiver, but the ever-gracious God grants him a vision of a ladder set upon the earth, reaching to heaven, with angels, not demons, ascending and descending on the ladder. And the Lord stood beside Jacob and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go; I will not leave you.”

Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place - and I did not know it.” And he was overcome with a sense of awe and holiness. He said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” And Luz became Bethel - house of God.

You know what this story says to me?

It says that there are moments when God is present and we do not know it, blinded as we are by circumstance and fear, guilt and anxiety, doubt and mistrust.

It says to me that even when I find myself in a bed of despair, mourning my failures, darkness washing over me, the arms and hands and face of God nowhere to be found, God is still near, holiness everywhere and all around.

And given time, after a nice hot bath in the waters of God’s grace, I can look back on that wintry season and say, “Surely the Lord was in that place - and I did not know it.” And with tears washed away and sight restored I can look around at all the holiness that surrounds me and say, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

The God of all creation, who knows you better than you know yourself, who knows the darkest worst and deepest best about you, loves you more than you could ever love yourself. And the God of creation is the God of redemption, who can redeem the darkest worst about you and nurture the deepest best within you.

I believe the God of creation and redemption sits beside you even now and if you will listen you will hear a divine whisper, “Know that I am with you. I will not leave you. I will keep you wherever you go.”

Where have you known God’s presence? Was it in this very room? Was it in the arms of someone you love? Was it walking a labyrinth? Was it standing by the cradle of your newborn child? Or sitting at the grave of a loved one gone way too soon? Where have you known God’s presence?

I invite you to come forward to the microphone and share. Please do your best to keep it brief so that others can share. Let us take a moment to celebrate God’s presence in our lives.

(Congregational Sharing)

June 15, 2008 - "I Dream of a Church Where . . ."

2008-07-14T20:07:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 5
June 15, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

I DREAM OF A CHURCH WHERE . . .
Genesis 18:1-15; 21:1-7; Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19;
Romans 5:1-8; Matthew 9:35-10:8-23

This past Thursday marked the 20th anniversary of my ordination. Now at 40 years of age I have been a pastor half my life. The church and culture have changed much since 1988. What the church needs to be now is different than what I believed the church needed to be then. And it seems the sands keep shifting. I have conversations with you that challenge me to rethink what the church is and how we do what we do and why we do it.

The Bible speaks of God’s people as God’s peculiar treasure. Crescent Hill Baptist Church is indeed a peculiar treasure. I’ve never been part of a congregation quite like this one. And fo the past year, neither have you.

At camp a couple of weeks ago, the Karen children and youth were teaching us to sing “Jesus Loves Me” in Karen. I was standing by Steve and Annette and I said, “Can you believe we are hearing this and we are not on the other side of the world, but that this is our congregation?” Amazing.

There are days when I think I understand who we are. And then there are days I feel almost as clueless as the day I arrived three years ago. So I have invited you to join with me in a new vision process as we begin our second century of ministry together.

A few Wednesday evenings ago, we sought to discern a biblical vision for God’s church by discussing various scripture passages. This morning I want to continue the vision process by looking at the lectionary passages for the day, but also going beyond them, and together as a congregation to begin talking about our dreams for Crescent Hill Baptist Church. The next step will be a meeting this summer of a New Century Vision Team that is still taking shape.

The gospel lesson today is a crucial text for the church. At this point in Matthew we have reached the place where the missional church is beginning to form. Jesus is doing the work the church will continue. He gathers the twelve disciples and summons them to do the work he has begun: The harvest is plentiful, he says, but the laborers are few. What kind of harvest is it? What kind of labor does Jesus need?

I have spent the past few days praying through the lectionary passages for today and drawing insights for what the church is called to be. I will also offer some of my dreams of church.

Following my sharing I invite you to share your dreams by completing the sentence, “I dream of a church where . . .” Just one sentence please. As thoughts come to mind or as others say something you want to remember, space is provided on the front of the bulletin for you to jot them down. And if you don’t feel like sharing your dreams verbally, write them down and place them in the offering plate.

Our Old Testament lesson this week is from Genesis. God appeared to Abraham in the form of three men. Abraham and Sarah welcome their in and feed them. The men share with 100-year-old Abraham and 90-year-old Sarah that Sarah soon will be great with child. And Sarah laughs. They had been promised a child long ago but it never came to pass. Now these messengers from God say it will soon take place. And Sarah laughs. Wouldn’t you? What was promised came to pass, and Sarah gave birth to a son they named “Laughter.”

From that story in Genesis I am led to say that

I dream of a church where . . . hospitality happens; where we welcome the stranger among us and the stranger within us and make room for them in our hearts and in God’s house. Because God often comes the form of a stranger (Gen 18:1-8).

I dream of a church where . . . the wonderful and miraculous happen (Gen 18:9-15; 21:1-7). Where we believe that nothing is too wonderful for God.

I dream of a church where . . . we would allow God to do at least one wild and crazy thing among us (Gen 18:9-15; 21:1-7). It may not be 90-year-old women giving birth, but it may something beyond our wildest imaginings that just seems impossible.

I dream of a church where . . . laughter happens (Gen 18:12-15; 21:6). Where we do not take ourselves so seriously we think the kingdom of God depends upon us. A place where joy overflows so high we laugh until we cry.

From the psalms . . .

I dream of a church where . . . prayer happens (Ps 116:1-2).

I dream of a church where . . . praise happens (Ps 116:19).

From the Romans text that called us into worship,

I dream of a church where . . . peace is found and grace abounds (Rom 5:1-2)

I dream of a church where . . . God’s glory is shared, shining on the faces of people who love God and want to follow Christ (Rom 5:2)

I dream of a church where . . . suffering produces endurance which produces character which produces hope (Rom 5:3-4) In other words, I dream of a church where . . . real transformation takes place; where we expect one another to become more loving, more generous, more truthful, growing in faith and trust, more willing to risk, more Christlike.

I dream of a church where . . . through worship and prayer and ministry God’s love is poured into the hearts of people through the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5-8)

And from the gospel reading,

I dream of a church where . . . the good news of the kingdom is taught and proclaimed, received and entered (9:35; 10:7). The kingdom of God, what Clarence Jordan called “God’s new order of the Spirit.”

I dream of a church where . . . healing happens: curing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing the lepers, casting out demons (Matt 9:35; 10:1, 8). Wouldn’t that be something to see?

I dream of a church where . . . we look at the world through the eyes of Jesus, which are the eyes of compassion, seeing the people of the world as they really are - as sheep without a shepherd (Matt 9:36)

I dream of a church where . . . we pray for laborers and act as laborers (Matt 9:37-38), ministers and servants who will do God’s work in the world.

I dream of a church where . . . we welcome all whom Jesus calls (Mt 10:2-4). And Jesus called everybody, including Matthew a tax-collector, who wasn’t even allowed to enter the temple and offer sacrifices.

I dream of a church where . . . we accept the uniqueness of all people, making us as diverse as the original twelve, welcoming the beauty and sin in us all (Mt 10:2-4)

I dream of a church where . . . we could tell the world, “All are welcome here” - conservative, moderate, and liberal, Republican, Democrat, and Independent, gay and straight, soldier and pacifist, white collar and blue collar, young and old, Karen and American, African and German, Cardinal and Wildcat, Hoosier and Bulldog, and any other uniquenesses out there.

I have to say I’ve never been a part of such a diverse congregation. You remind me of the original twelve. God has gathered us in this place literally from all over the world, and you have created a welcome. I think we need to go public with our openness.

I dream of a church where . . . we accept the call to be disciples and help form those Jesus calls into disciples (Mt 10:2-4).

I dream of a church where . . . decisions are not based on money; where we serve expecting no payment; and do not serve based on how we will benefit numerically or financially (Matt 10:8-10).

I dream of a church where . . . we accept the mission of being sent out as sheep among wolves (Matt 10:16). Did you notice that Jesus sees the crowds as sheep and wolves? (Matt 9:36; 10:16)

I dream of a church where . . . we are wise as serpents and innocent-harmless as doves (Matt 10:16)

I dream of a church where . . . we expect suffering and persecution and hatred because Jesus experienced the same (Matt 10:17-18, 22). His love was too large and his justice too far-reaching.

I dream of a church where . . . we expect opportunities for witness and are prepared for them (Matt 10:18-20)

I dream of a church where . . . faith is so strongly shaped in each of us that our allegiance to God supercede all other allegiances, even family. Jesus says we should expect family division (Matt 10:21).

In addition to those,

I dream of a church where . . . youth are guided in the shaping of their own authentic faith.

I dream of a church where . . . where every church member has their own personal ministry in the world.

I dream of a church where . . .the love of one another is more important than anything.

What about you? What are your dreams?

Begin your sentence “I dream of a church where . . .” and then share your dream.

If you wish to share, please make your way to a microphone because these will be recorded and we will publish some of them in our next newsletter.

(Congregation Shares)

(Dreams from the Congregation)

I dream of a church where . . . the Spirit of God is not quenched.

I dream of a church where . . . love is ever-present.

I dream of a church where . . . where disciples of Jesus our Lord praise and glorify God our Father.

I dream of a church where . . . we welcome everyone.

I dream of a church where . . . use our homes as places of hospitality and discipleship.

I dream of a church where . . . love one another and welcome strangers to our church.

I dream of a church where . . . decisions are made with wisdom, love and grace.

I dream of a church where . . . all are welcomed who love the Lord wherever we are on our journey in life.

I dream of a church where . . . the congregation loves God so much that when people enter the church love will be so evident that the stranger will say, “These people really love God - and it shows?”

I dream of a church where . . . the song of the church possesses refugee vigor.

I dream of a church where . . . we are all woven into each other’s lives as a part of God’s tapestry and color.

I dream of a church where . . . I am loved totally unconditionally and where I am helped to love others totally and unconditionally.

I dream of a church where . . . God will fill the entire sanctuary with people from this community and all over the world.

I dream of a church where . . . all of us will be true disciples.

I dream of a church where . . . we see Jesus in every life.

I dream of a church where . . . we really take the time to love one another.

I dream of a church where . . . our journey is our destination.

I dream of a church where . . . we are actively loving one another on Sundays and throughout the week, as if there were no tomorrow - no East or West, no American or Karen - simply, purely, each and all of us Christians eager to share and express God’s love in this moment as Crescent Hill Baptist Church.

I dream of a church where . . . our dreams aren’t just wishes on stars but the beginning of actions that turn dreams into reality.

Matthew’s Gospel end with the promise: “Lo, I am with you always.” We can be the church of God’s dreams because we are promised God’s presence to lead and guide us and make the journey with us. So let us dream on!

July 6, 2008 - "Agaperos and Matrimonotony"

2008-07-08T17:16:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 8
July 6, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

AGAPEROS AND MATRIMONOTONY
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67 Song of Songs 2:8-13;
Romans 7:15-25a Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

With help from an old Crescent Hill saint, Grady Nutt, I teach you two new words today. Grady may have taught them to some of you. Others of you may not have heard them before. You may not even be able to pronounce them. But chances are many of you have experienced them both.

Along with the books he published during his lifetime, Grady used to write a column for the monthly periodical, The Student, and occasionally he would invent words to write about. That is the source of the two new words in the sermon title this morning: AGAPEROS and MATRIMONOTONY. One is the cure for the other. Let’s begin with MATRIMONOTONY.

MATRIMONOTONY comes from the two words “matrimony” and “monotony.” As I said, some of you may have experienced this word before. Monotony in marriage comes from many things. From getting in a routine, from being so busy you don’t have time to be creative with your marriage, and settling in a rut. It’s doing the same thing the same way for years. Nothing new. No adventure. So easy to do.

In her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Breathing Lessons, [1] Anne Tyler takes us through a day in the life of the marriage of Maggie and Ira Moran. They spend the day on a road trip to a funeral. The husband of Maggie’s best friend has died suddenly. On the way home from the funeral they also pay a visit to see their granddaughter who now lives with their son’s ex-wife, a granddaughter they have not seen in several years.

Anne Tyler shows us the delicate and difficult beauty of marriage; the sometimes awkward dance of daily conversation, compromise, and decision making that can be so monotonous but comprise the reality of long-term relationships. It’s not all Hollywood material.

Maggie’s daughter, Daisy, who has observed her parent’s marriage and particularly her mother’s life, says to her one day with a kind of fascinated expression on her face, “Mom? Was there a certain conscious point in your life when you decided to settle for being ordinary?” [2]

And yet, much if not most of life is lived in the ordinary. The ordinary can be beautiful and holy. Sometimes, however, it can be boring and monotonous. So, how can we live in the ordinary without a deadening monotony, especially in our marriages?

Grady Nutt said the cure for MATRIMONOTONY is AGAPEROS. Grady wrote about his growing up years of learning about love. How he was told about the good kind of love - agape - undeserved love, God’s kind of love, unconditional love that seeks no reward. But he was not allowed to think unless with guilt about eros - erotic love, passionate, sexual love. For Christians eros is enemy, agape is Savior - so he was told. So were many of us told. (It’s what I’m telling my children!)

Courtship for Christians, he said, involved mixed leaf-raking, group marshmallow toasts, and prayer dates. On the occasion of his 15th wedding anniversary he writes that 15 years of marriage had taught him one supremely valuable lesson: agape and eros are both good words and make one super word together: AGAPEROS - a passionate, self-giving love. He even wrote a book with the title AGAPEROS. [3]

To help with the matrimonotony, AGAPEROS teaches us the need for passionate love (eros) and self-giving love (agape). First, eros, passionate love.

Marital monogamy does not have to be equated with marital monotony. Bookshelves are full of titles like Hot Monogamy and Holy Sex. On the cover of this week’s Time magazine are the words: “Does God Want You to Have More Sex?” For sermon research purposes I had to read it. It tells the story of New Directions Christian Church in Memphis, Tennessee that launched a program entitled “40 Nights of Grrreat Sex,” providing participants daily planners for their sex life. Now there’s an idea for Lent! The pastor even had a blog where people could share their experiences. [4]

I also found on the magazine shelf that in the August issue of Cosmopolitan Scarlett Johannson talks about the benefits she has learned from monogamy. Monogamy does not have to become MATRIMONOTONY.

I feel I have been granted permission to preach this sermon from Home Life magazine, a conservative periodical of the Southern Baptist Convention. I figured if they could publish an article entitled “Secrets of an Irresistible Woman,” I could preach a sermon about eros! By the way, I read the article. It has its good points, but it doesn’t live up to its title. Too much advice from Proverbs, and not enough from the Song of Songs.

What about you? Were you like Grady, confused about love? Were you told that agape is good love and eros is bad love, or it’s bad at least until you get married? We were told this no doubt to try and make us behave, and it worked for some of us. But while the experience of eros is meant to be shared in the context of a lifetime commitment, to be told it is bad and ugly until that time has a way of bringing an attitude of shame to sex even within marriage.

The Song of Songs, from which we read earlier, which is quite explicit in places, was so embarrassing for many that for centuries it was interpreted by the church as an allegory for God’s relationship with Israel, though nothing in the Song calls for such an interpretation. The Song of Songs is a sequence of lyrical love poems, with beautiful phrases, such as: “Your loving is better than wine,” “You are beautiful my love, daunting as the stars in their courses.” And those are the tame ones!

It mirrors one of the most romantic scenes in all of literature which is found in the Bible when Isaac and Rebekah meet for the first time. You should read the story in Genesis 24.

Isaac’s father, Abraham, sent one of his servants back to the homeland in order to find a good woman for Isaac. It was also important to Abraham that Isaac's wife not be coerced into marriage, as was often the case.

The servant swore under oath that he would find such a wife for Isaac and off he went. Traveling a long distance, he rode into the town of Nahor, and stopped at the local drive-through well. He was greeted with the lovely sight of many “daughters of men” who were gathered about the well. This presented him with a most beautiful problem to solve: which daughter was the right one for Isaac.

The servant, faced with this problem, set out to pray to God in order to find the right answer. His prayer was simple. He would ask one of the daughters for a drink of water. Whichever one replied affirmatively and then also set out to water his camels, that young lady would be the woman for Isaac.

Immediately following his prayer, a woman named Rebekah appears. She is described as very beautiful. The servant asks her for a drink. She gives him a drink and offers to draw water for his camels. Believing this to be the sign he was looking for, the servant asks Rebekah whose daughter she is and if there is room in her father's house for him to spend the night. She tells him who she is and leads him to her house. And the engagement process begins.

After the servant talks with Rebekah's father, the father offers Rebekah to be Isaac's wife. Rebekah is asked if she would like to go and she says yes.

Isaac waits for the servant to return. He paces the field, waiting for his bride. He feels as if his life is finally about to begin. And as all who are married know, marriage is the beginning of a whole new life.

Isaac is out one evening walking in the fields and looks up and sees this caravan of camels coming. Rebekah looks up and sees a man walking toward her. She slips down from the camel and asks the servant, “Who is that man over there, walking in the field to meet us?” And he says, with a smile on his face I'm sure, “That is my master.”

Rebekah then takes her veil and covers herself. The servant explains to Isaac all that has happened. Then Isaac takes Rebekah into his mother Sarah's tent, and, scripture says, she became his wife, and he loved her. Hollywood and Harlequin, eat your heart out!

Eros, romance, passionate love is a gift of God that needs to be celebrated, not degraded. In the story of creation our sexuality is affirmed. The man and woman were naked and unashamed. In the Song of Songs, our sexuality is celebrated.

The Bible is not opposed to sex. As a matter of fact, it cares more about sex than we do. The Bible might even indicate that the problem in our sex-saturated society is not that we think too much about sex, but that we think about it so poorly. Our problem is that we forget what manner of persons we are.

The Greek philosophers separated body and soul, seeing them as enemies. But the Scriptures look upon us as a unity. We do not simply have a body; we are a body. We do not simply have a soul; we are a soul. The body is not an evil thing, but a part of God’s good creation, woven through with soul. And because the Bible has such an exalted view of the body, it cannot have a cheap and degrading view of sex. Eros - erotic, sexual love is not our enemy; it is a good gift of God. It seems by the number of pregnancies reported in recent days within our congregation that many of you have discovered that good gift.

Eros has gotten a bad name because it has wrongly been defined in terms of “lust.” And lust has been wrongly defined as “sexual desire.” But sexual desire is not sinful. It is part of our very nature, a physical drive that begins way too early. As a teenager did you ever feel like God had pulled a joke on you by turning on your hormones so early. Now we know why in biblical days they got married at 13 and 14!

Erotic love and sexual desire are powerful forces. When Paul talks in Romans about doing what we doesn’t want to do and sometimes feeling as if he cannot do what he knows he should do, we can identify.

But let it be clear that sexual desire is not dirty. Sexual desire is not “lust.” Lust is the untamed sexual desire to possess another person. And eros is not lust. Eros is the passionate gift of God, and joined with the self-giving love of agape takes sexual desire and transforms it into one of God’s most wonderful gifts of intimacy and sharing. A sharing that creates a union - a physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual union. And that is why sex is intended for the covenant of marriage. It creates a “one flesh” union that is deeper than just physical. And wounds are left when that union is torn apart.

Erotic, passionate love without a committed, self-giving love is a distortion of what sex and love are supposed to be. For eros to be experienced as the good gift of God it must be joined with agape - the unconditional love of commitment.

Eros apart from agape can be dangerous and harmful. The passion of eros involves the giving of your self to another person in a most intimate way. And that needs to be done with great care. The writer of the Song says that love must not be roused carelessly. She writes, “Swear to me that you will never awaken love until it is ripe.” There is a time and place for eros.

AGAPEROS, says Grady, is loving right for the right reasons with the right person. It is joyfully becoming one flesh in the healthy knowledge that God created us as sexual beings, that it was all God’s idea, and God thought of this one as very, very good.

In fact, if you want to take some of the monotony out of your marriage, go home tonight and read the Song of Songs to one another. It will bring a whole new perspective to reading the Bible together. In fact, you may think twice before you tell your teenager to read the Bible on dates. You may just want to give them a New Testament with the Psalms.

The Song of Songs, however, does not speak simply of the physical nature of sex. It makes it clear that there is a fidelity to all true love. In chapter 6 the man suggests there had been numerous opportunities for promiscuity when he could have had maidens without number, but he had said no to them all.

When eros is coupled with agape, there is a faithfulness present. “My beloved is mine and I am his,” writes the poet. Love has a permanence about it. In chapter 8 the poet of the Song says, “Set me as a seal on your heart, for love is as strong as death. Waters cannot quench it; floods cannot drown it.” The permanence of love. That is agape. It is a self-giving, committed love.

Agape and eros - AGAPEROS - can teach us much about the fullness of love. The words “love” and “sex” has been so misused and overused that it’s hard to know the true meaning of love and the true purpose of sex.

In Tyler’s novel, Maggie and Ira are talking about their son’s ex-wife and how young she and her son were when they married with a baby on the way, saying she didn’t know the first thing about love, which prompted Maggie to ask, “What was the first thing about love?” [5] It can be confusing.

In romantic love, there’s that beginning stage of a “sick-at-your-stomach” love - where you can’t eat, sleep or function in the civilized world. And then there’s the kind of love that exists between the couple who just celebrated 50 years of marriage, who know each other inside and out (perhaps better than they want to know each other), who through all the conflicts and disagreements and frustrations and monotonous ordinary days have managed somehow to stay together. From the “sick at your stomach” love to the “sticking together for 50 years” kind of love, there are many degrees of emotion and expression and commitment that fall under that word “love.”

Teenage pop-star Vanessa Hudgens, expressing her naivete, says, “If you love someone, you really shouldn’t have to work at it. You finish each other’s sentences and have the same sense of humor.” Let’s hope she gets the opportunity to sit down with couples who have been married fifty years and changes her understanding of love. Because if she doesn’t I hate to see how many times she will be married and divorced.

Deep joy and meaning are found only in agape, in God’s kind of love. C. S. Lewis called it “gift-love.” God gives of God’s self to us all each and every day of our lives. God loves us with a passionate desire. God loves us because God delights to give. That is agape.

And we are called to love as God loves. We all need both to love and to be loved. To give love and receive love. For without love we die. We cannot live without love. It is a basic human need essential to our well-being.

We are told that sex is a basic appetite, like our need for food and water. But we sense, I think, that our sexual longing is something of a different nature than our need for food and water or sleep. Something spiritual abides in a sexual relationship, something far more profound than a full stomach or a rested body. Sexual needs run deeper than the physical. Eros must be united with agape. For agape is that emotion and decision of the will to give in order to make the other person happy.

Agape gives of the self in commitment and sacrifice. It is the strong foundation upon which relationships are built. Though agape involves our emotions, relationships cannot be firmly established on emotion alone. Because in time, we will no longer be sick at our stomachs with love. We will be eating and sleeping and functioning in the world again. We will before long discover our partner has more than one flaw. And not a small one at that.

MATRIMONOTONY, frustrations and arguments will arise and demand more than a “sick-at-your-stomach” kind of love to keep things together. It will demand a love as strong as death. A love that the floods of conflict and hardship cannot drown. In order for our relationships to be healthy and long-lasting, it will take the commitment and sacrifice of agape - the love that gives of the self.

Grady Nutt found it to be the cure for his marriage. He once wrote, “I have been happily married for eleven years and unhappily married for five years before that - all to the same woman - Eleanor. The main problem we had - to quote Eleanor - was that we couldn’t agree on who loved me most!”

Love is something we all need. Who among us does not need to know that we are loved? Love involves giving and receiving. Long-lasting love demands the balance and unity of agape and eros - AGAPEROS - passionate self-giving. For they both spring from the same human impulse to know someone fully and to be fully known. It’s hard work, but the reward is joy beyond measure.

In Tyler’s novel, following the funeral, two of Maggie’s old friends were talking about mixed marriages as one of them was married to a person of another race. Then one of the friends said, “Doesn’t it sometimes seem to you like every marriage is mixed?” [6]

There is the mixture of two distinct persons with two distinct histories who often experience things in two distinct ways. Yes, every marriage is a mixed marriage.

And to live in the mix requires a love and a strength greater than our own. It calls for the love of God and the grace that comes from resting in that love. Jesus said, “Come to me, you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens - even the burden of relational problems - and learn from me and I will give you rest.”

Maybe Anne Tyler is right: “Breathing lessons” are required for the daily ins and outs of long-term relationships. Some days all you can do is breath in and breath out. Perhaps we could see prayer as breathing lessons, breathing in the love of God to satisfy the deepest needs of our souls, breathing out the love of God into the lives of others - with the passion of eros and the self-giving of agape - AGAPEROS. We can start those breathing lessons even now in the silence.

___________________________

1. Anne Tyler, Breathing Lessons, Knoff, 1988.
2. Tyler, 30
3. Grady Nutt, Agaperos, Broadman, 1977
4. Time, “Does God Want You to Have More Sex?” July 7, 2008
5. Tyler, 15
6. Tyler, 84

June 1, 2008 - "Life as a House"

2008-06-03T05:06:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 3
June 1, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

LIFE AS A HOUSE
Genesis 6:9-22; 7:24; 8:14-19; Psalm 46; Matthew 7:21-29

In the movie “Life As a House,” Kevin Kline plays George, a divorced and dying father in his mid-forties trying to rebuild his relationship with his son by tearing down his own old shack of a house and together building a new one.

As they build together and grow closer, they adjust to living in the garage of the house, the open bathroom ten feet from the kitchen, sleeping in quarters too close for comfort. By the time the house is complete, the ex-wife and a few of the neighbors have pitched in to help.

When the house is built and his relationship with his son repaired, he offers this reflection:

I always thought of myself as a house. I was always what I lived in. It didn’t need to be big. It didn’t even need to be beautiful. It just needed to be mine. I became what I was meant to be. I built myself a life. I built myself a house.

Your Life as a House

Think for a moment about your life as a house in which you live. We all of us have to some degree built ourselves a life.

What kind of house is it?
Is it a run-down shack needing to be torn down and reconstructed?
Is the foundation strong but the walls a little shaky?
How bad is the stench?
Are there any wide open spaces in which to spread your wings and grow?
Do you feel at home within your own life?
Is the house that is your life becoming what it was meant to be?

We are all of us going to come to the end of our lives, and unless death strikes suddenly, we will be given the opportunity to reflect. We will, each of us, have built ourselves a house we call our life. What kind of house will it be?

In the Gospel lesson for today, Jesus uses the image of a house when he talks about a strong life. He talks about building your house upon a strong foundation, on rock rather than sand, so that when the floods and storms come, the house that is your life will not fall.

What is the difference between a strong house built on rock that will not fall and a weak house built on sand that crumbles? The difference, Jesus said, is the difference between acting and not acting upon his teachings. We can spend our lives and raise our kids in church, but if we do not embody the teachings of Jesus we learn here, our lives and families will be none the stronger for it.

The finest capsule we have of Jesus’ teaching is in the portion of Matthew’s gospel from which today’s text was read. The words of Jesus we’ve read today come at the conclusion of what we call the Sermon on the Mount, a gathering of Jesus’ teachings that, Jesus said, if we act upon them, the house that is our life will grow strong and stand strong when the floods and storms come.

How do we build such a life? As we read through the Sermon on the Mount Jesus talks about the building materials of:

hungering and thirsting after righteousness
living lives of mercy
being peacemakers
reconciling with those who have something against us
controlling our emotions, our thoughts, and our bodies
being faithful in marriage
speaking truth, letting our yes be yes and our no be no
refusing to retaliate
loving our enemies and praying for them
giving more than is asked of us
giving without others knowing
looking upon others without judgment, concerned first with removing the sin in our own lives
praying not as a public spectacle but as a spiritual practice moving us toward transformation
seeking and praying for the kingdom of God to be real here and now on earth as it is in heaven
fasting not to seen by others
but to draw near to God as our life’s bread and living water
storing up kingdom treasures not the ones that rust and decay
trusting our lives into God’s good care

That Jesus says is how you build a strong life.

The Home Within Our House

It is the life we seek to embody and teach in the home within our house.

God told the people of Israel:

You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul . . . [and] teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Write them on the doorposts of your house. (Deut 11:18-20)

In the home within our house, what are we teaching our children by the way that we live and the things that we say? Get a good education, work hard, be independent, take care of your family? Those are all good qualities to have, but Jesus didn’t teach any of that. Those things were not of primary concern to Jesus.

He was more concerned with the heart and character of a person, characterized mostly by prayer and generosity, faith and mercy, love and forgiveness, peacemaking and reconciliation.

One of my favorite parts of being a pastor is participating in the dedication of babies. It’s one of the few things that makes almost everyone in the congregation smile. (That and a short sermon). And we smile because of a baby’s innocent beauty. Perhaps more than anything else, babies help us believe in the miraculous. They are symbols of hope that the world will go on. And if the church does its job, who knows what a child may grow up to be.

Baby dedications are one of the most joyous and serious things we do as parents and as a congregation. As a Christian parent we are saying not only have we chosen to walk in the way of Jesus but we are promising to raise our children in the way of Jesus. And we are acknowledging that we need the help of the congregation to do so.

As a congregation we are saying we will seek to make of the church not just a place for our own spiritual growth, but we will make of this place a true spiritual home for children. By prayer, word, and example, and by the giving of ourselves and our resources in the nursery and in ministries for children and youth, we will help parents raise their children in the way of Jesus.

The father in the movie I spoke of earlier, upon realizing his time was brief, began to rethink his relationship with his family, particularly his son, and what kind of life he had built for him.

What kind of life have you and I built for our children? What kind of house do we live in? How strong is its foundation? Is the brick and wood held together by Jesus’ teaching?

It’s important because storms and floods are going to come.

The Ark of Safety: Home and Church

Noah was told that a flood was coming. He was also told how to keep his family safe. So he reoriented his life around the words of God and built an ark of refuge. And when the floods came, they survived.

The ark is a symbol of safety in the midst of life’s storms. It can symbolize the home when the outside world is threatening. It can symbolize the church, our family of faith, when home life is difficult and the walls of our houses are shaky.

God As Refuge and Strength

And from time to time, home life is difficult for us all and the walls of our houses are shaky. Just like the recent storms across the American Midwest and China and Burma have destroyed houses, crises come into every life that threaten our foundations. Physical houses may crumble in the face of tornadoes and earthquakes and cyclones. It can also be true about the house that is our life?

The house that is our life, for us all, they are not perfect. All of them are in need of some repair. All of our houses need help. They are not and never will be perfect places. From the outside some of them may look that way, but they are not. There are cracks in the ceiling. The plumbing needs to be fixed. Termites are doing secret damage. All of us need help.

So when our houses and families and churches show cracks and perhaps even fall in, we remember the words of the psalmist: God is our refuge and strength; a very present help in time of need. Therefore we will not fear. God is our rock and our fortress. We can be strong and let our hearts take courage. The Lord is with us as parents and builders of houses and homes and lives.

The psalmist says, “God makes wars to cease.” If we will listen and heed God’s words, wars can cease between nations and enemies and friends, between parent and child, husband and wife, in-laws and out-laws. God can make the wars to cease inside your own house, even within your own skin, offering the word and way of grace and reconciliation.

What Kind of House Will Your Life Be?

We are all of us going to come to the end of our lives, and unless death strikes suddenly, we will be given the opportunity to reflect. We will have built ourselves a house we call our lives. What kind of house will it be? Will we have become what we were meant to be?

You can start today, you know, rebuilding and repairing, word of Jesus by word of Jesus - praying, giving, loving, forgiving. And the good news is, you don’t have to do it alone. There’s an ark full of people called the church and we’re here to help each other build and rebuild a life. And keeping the ark afloat in the midst of floods and storms is the God who is our refuge and strength. And from time to time you can look up and see a rainbow and be reminded of God’s covenant promise: You are not alone. You are not alone.

I invite you now into the silence to reflect upon the house that is your life. May you meet God in the silence and begin the process of whatever repair and renovation is needed. And then allow the words of “The Prayer” to be a prayer of safety and help for your life, for your family, for us all. Let us enter into the silence of God’s transforming grace.

May 25, 2005 - "Seeking the Kingdom of God in an Age of Anxiety"

2008-05-28T02:45:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky

Pentecost 2
May 25, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SEEKING THE KINGDOM OF GOD
IN AN AGE OF ANXIETY

Isaiah 49:8-16a; Psalm 131; 1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Matthew 6:19-34

We are living in an age of anxiety, more intensely so than we have in a long time. Gas prices, the housing market, the credit collapse, natural disasters, the devastation of war, and the day to day struggles we all face all come together and wrap our hearts in knots.

If Jesus ever sounded naive and irrelevant, right next to “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemies” is the line we hear from the gospel today: “Don’t be anxious.”

I want to say, “Jesus, I have a 14 year old, a 10 year old, and a 2 year old, and I’m the pastor of a crazy congregation. Don’t be anxious?”

How would you respond to Jesus?

“Jesus, I have aging parents or a sick spouse to take care of and my child is making terrible decisions. Don’t be anxious?”

“Jesus, I’m off to college and uncertain what to do with my life. Don’t be anxious?”

“Jesus, my company is laying people off of work or my business is failing or I can’t pay my bills. Don’t be anxious?”

“Jesus, I’m in a new country. I don’t fully understand the language and customs. I am mistreated at my job, but there’s no other place to work. Don’t be anxious?”

“Jesus, I live in Burma. A cyclone has decimated my village. My little girl is sick and if aid does not come soon she will die. Don’t be anxious?”

“Jesus, I live in China. An earthquake has destroyed my home and my business, and I’ve not yet found all the members of my family. Don’t be anxious?”

“Yes,” Jesus said. “Don’t be anxious.”

Now, in fairness to Jesus and all preachers, I want us to be careful not to lift a few words out of the middle of a sermon and judge him. Let’s see what else he has to say and what alternatives he has to offer.

These words of Jesus are set in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. Following words on giving, praying, and fasting - spiritual practices that help us relinquish control of our lives and possessions and appetites - Jesus says:

1. Keep check on your heart (6:19-21)

Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal.

How often are our lives, our emotions, our energies bound up in things a moth could eat, rust could ruin, or a thief could steal? Many of us have been captured by the tyranny of things. We are possessed by our possessions.

Jesus offers an alternative:

Instead, store up treasures in the kingdom of heaven.

Things that cannot rust or be stolen, like friends, family, church, acts of justice and love.

Why should we be concerned about our treasures? Because Jesus said:

Where your treasure is there your heart will be.

In order to release our lives from the anxious knots in which we find ourselves tied, Jesus suggests we keep check on our hearts. And we do that by treasuring the right things. Not concerning ourselves with possessions that can be stolen.

That means among other things I have to let go of my anxiety over the condition of my books and not be devastated when they get wet or the corners get bent. I’m sure God wants me to take care of God’s fine gift of books, but not be torn up over a torn page. And believe me, that is a deep spiritual struggle for me. Just ask my wife. We must not place ultimate value on those things that will not last. We must keep check on our hearts by treasuring the right things.

2. Keep check on your eyes (6:22-23)

Also, let us keep check on our eyes. Jesus said:

The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.

For those of us with the good fortune of sight, what we see with our eyes makes its way into our heart. And that’s what Jesus is talking about here: the eyes of the heart. In Ephesians, Paul prays for the enlightening of the eyes of our hearts (Eph 1:18).

It seems Jesus is saying if your eyes are focused on the right things, your heart will be healthy and full of light to see as God sees. If your eyes are focused on the wrong things, your heart will be unhealthy and full of darkness, unable to see as God sees.

It’s a matter of “seeing” rightly. The eyes of our heart can be clouded; they can distort what we see, leading us to look at the world through the eyes of an anxious heart: Will I have enough? Will I get what I need? Jesus teaches us to look at the world in God’s light with a mind-set of trustfulness in God to provide what we need. So let’s keep check on our hearts and our eyes. The eyes of our hearts.

3. Keep check on your loyalties (6:24)

Let us also keep check on our loyalties. Jesus states for us an obvious universal truth that we all too often ignore at our great peril. He says:

No one can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and earthly treasures.

We cannot serve God and money, God and wealth, God and material possessions, God and the market.

Steve Shoemaker has said that American religion is “Dowism.” Not of the Asian religious variety, but D-O-W “Dowism” - the worship of the Dow Jones average, trusting the free market to be the salvation of the world. The Dow Jones average is important. Many of our retirements are tied to it. We need to make good judgments with our investments. But the market is not our God. Our lives do not consist of the prices at the end of the day.

If increasing and protecting your wealth is your religion, greed and anxiety will follow you all the days of your life. But to serve God is to open your hands to freely give and freely receive and freely release your anxious heart.

4. Keep check on the birds and the lilies
and the God who cares for them (6:25-32)

To help us live in such freedom Jesus tells us in addition to keeping check on our hearts and eyes and loyalties, to also keep check on the birds of the air and the lilies of the field and the God who cares for them and us all.

We had a great time last Sunday as we worshiped outdoors and our youth led us to seriously consider our care for the earth. We would do well to be outside again today to better experience these words of Jesus.

Wendell Berry says of the Bible: “I don’t think it is enough appreciated how much of an outdoor book the Bible really is . . . It is best read and understood outdoors. . . Passages that within walls seem improbable or incredible, outdoors seem merely natural. This is because outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread.” [1]

When you read closely you see that a fair amount of what happens in the Bible takes place outdoors. Jesus himself did most of his work under an open sky. His teaching made free use of what his listeners could witness in nature: the wind in the trees, a farmer sowing seed, or in today’s passage, birds and wildflowers.

Look at the birds of air, Jesus said. Consider the lilies of the field.
No doubt he meant the birds that were soaring above them or singing around them there on the flowered covered hills of Galilee.

I think Jesus did this because he knows such words like “don’t be anxious” are empty. They never work by themselves. So he shows us the beauty of flowers and the freedom of birds in the hopes that they will touch us deeply enough to release us out from under our anxiety.

His instructions are to look thoughtfully and ponder deeply God’s provision and extravagant beauty of creation. The birds do not sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet woven into the very tapestry of creation is God’s gracious provision for the birds. The lilies grow and neither toil nor spin and are clothed in such beauty. Jesus says we are of greater lasting value than the birds and lilies, yet God makes provision for them.

And yet it is hard to read these words and not think of those who starve and go unclothed. I think the point Jesus would make is that God has made provision for all the earth. Since Jesus’ day we have polluted that provision and governments have been established that restrict access to those in need. We think of those who are suffering as a result of the cyclone in Burma. God’s wants those people fed, but the Burmese government has been slow to allow access of food to them. And then the Chinese earthquake is beyond comprehension.

How do hear these words of Jesus in these days of anxiety?

First, let’s acknowledge that there is a worry - perhaps we could call it a caring concern - a concern over those in desperate need, a concern over the character of our nation and the condition of our world - such concern is a sign of care that often drives people to good action. Such concern is a Christian virtue.

But there is a worry, more accurately characterized as anxiety, that puts us in a state of paralysis. The root of the word “anxiety” means “to choke.” Anxiety constricts blood vessels and it constricts faith. And when Jesus says, “Don’t be anxious,” he’s talking about an obsessive worry that eats away at your life.

There is the anxiety of basic provision. God knows what we need to eat and drink and wear and is always at work in the world through the daily miracles of farms and gardens and through the generosity of others making provision. Last week Joel Osteen was in town. He went so far as to say that God would make the gas in our car go further. I don’t know about that, but I do believe God is at work for our basic provision.

5. Keep check on today (6:34)

Beyond the anxiety for basic provision, there are more broader, abstract anxieties, the dread that is grounded in not knowing anything of what the future may bring: Will the people we love be happy and safe? What kind of death will we die? What other losses await us? Will there be enough of what we need? Jesus says, Don’t be anxious about tomorrow. Tomorrow will bring enough troubles of its own.
Reminds me of the time Charlie Brown said: “I’ve made a new commitment. From now on I’ll dread just one day at a time.” Sometimes that’s the best we can do.

Jesus says, “Don’t be anxious about what tomorrow may or may not bring. Today’s troubles are enough. Just keep check on today.”

6. Pursue the kingdom of God (6:25, 33)

But this text and this entire Sermon on the Mount is about more than our needs. It’s really about turning our focus away from ourselves and toward the kingdom of God. Jesus said,

Don’t be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

And the answer is yes. Life through God’s eyes is about justice and compassion and hope and love.

Jesus said, “Seek first the kingdom of God, set your heart on what needs to be done in this world, and God will provide what you need.” Because when we seek first God’s kingdom, we will be at work caring about the needs of one another, making just social injustices, crossing into Burma with food and water at the risk of our lives, raising money to water Malawi, making sure refugees are able to make a home here with friends and basic provision.

If you want to calm your anxious heart, as best you can with God’s help, seek an undivided heart. That’s what Jesus was saying earlier. Seek an undivided heart. A heart with one master, not two. You can’t serve the kingdom of God and the kingdom of possessions. To live free from the anxiety that chokes the life out of us calls us to place our hands over our hearts and say, “I pledge my full and undivided allegiance to the kingdom of God.”

An allegiance to the kingdom of God turns the eyes of our hearts toward the massive suffering of the world. And in so doing, turns our focus away from our own needs. I will not worry so much about my food and clothes if I look out upon the deep needs of the world and do what I must do to alleviate the sufferings I see there.

And I will do what I can today with hope and courage and faith in the God who loves and cares for us all. That’s what I will do today. And when tomorrow comes, I will do what I can tomorrow.

But for now I will sit at God’s table and take bread and wine and offer thanks for God’s daily provision. And I will walk outside and look at the birds of the air and consider the beauty of God’s creation and realize I am part of something big and glorious. And I will realize that the God who holds this world in caring provision is the God in whose palm my name is inscribed.

I began this sermon sounding like the children of Israel to whom Isaiah was speaking. A people who cried out: “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.”

And the God of all compassion says, “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?” Realizing that human mothers can be frail and neglectful, God says, “Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.”

Did you hear about the mother in China this week nursing nine children each day, many of whom are not her own, but babies whose mothers are dead or missing from the earthquake? That is God our compassionate mother who will not forget us, nursing the world with a mother’s milk, all the children of all the world gathered round her. Her heart won’t let her turn anyone away. Because our names and faces are inscribed on the palms of her hands. You will never, never, never be forgotten nor forsaken.

Just like Jesus’ words “Don’t be anxious” often fall empty, my words today may not have eased your anxious heart. So I invite you to the prayer of the psalmist printed for your silent contemplation. Perhaps they are your words today. I invite you into the quiet silence to meet the mothering God providing for us and weaning us from anxiety toward hope, lifting our eyes to see the birds of the air and lifting our hearts to consider the lilies of the field, and directing our lives toward the kingdom of God, bring hope to this age of anxiety. Let us enter into the silence.

DISCIPLINE OF SILENCE

Psalm 131 (Printed as reflection during the silence)
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is within me. O people of God, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

God of creation,

we look around us and see a world filled with wonder and wickedness, greed and goodness, abundance and scarcity, hell and hope.

With a global economy that is fragile, we have become fragile and anxious.

Teach us, O God, how to live in these days, seeking not so much economic security but your economy of justice and compassion in this world.

Lead us not into the creation of wealth for whomever can take it.
May we be more concerned that all the people of all the world have enough.
Help us wed the free market with a fair market.

Remind us, O God, how greed and injustice and poverty lead to war.
We are reminded this Memorial Day weekend the profound damage of war.
Lives lost. Mothers and fathers taken from children. Fear and emotional harm, physical injury beyond what many of us can comprehend.

So we remember those who have given their lives when our world has gone warring mad. We pray for those who protect the world daily. Grant us the decency and compassion to care for those wounded in war, those who said yes when their country called.

And grant us the heart to remember all the dead and wounded from every country. Remind us that in the kingdom of God there are no national boundaries. We are all your children. All of us brothers and sisters in the human family. We are all of us inscribed on the palms of your hands.

Give us undivided hearts, O God, at rest in your abiding presence, seeking your kingdom, trusting in your daily provision, sharing what we have with others.

Help us hear the simple faith and the hope-filled boldness as we pray as Jesus taught us, saying, “Our Father . . .”

___________________

1. Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, Pantheon, 1993, 105.

May 4, 2008 - "Sanctuary"

2008-05-09T21:10:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Ascension Sunday
May 4, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

SANCTUARY
A Celebration of 81 Years in the CHBC Sanctuary

Acts 1:1-14; Psalm 47:1, 6-9; 93:5; 68:3-6, 10, 32-35;
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; Luke 24:44-53

It is true what they say: God does not only dwell in buildings. God is everywhere and can be worshiped anywhere. King Solomon said as much in his prayer of dedication for the Temple: “Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, O God, much less this house that I have built!”

And yet, there is much to be said about profound experiences with God in sacred places. In a world where very little is sacred, or where so many trivial things are considered sacred or have become for us sacred idols, we all need places that are truly sacred.

A sanctuary is such a place. It doesn’t have to be a sanctuary. There are many sacred places other than sanctuaries. But I believe we need places like this where we can come to participate in the most sacred act in all of human living - the worship of the living God.

I believe it is good and right to put the very best of what we have into places dedicated for the worship of Almighty God. Great detail and importance is given in scripture to the building of temples, places for the worship of the Holy One. The finest of everything was to be used. It was built for the glory of God, and only the best and most glorious would do.

Down through the centuries, magnificent cathedrals and sanctuaries of worship have been constructed to the glory of God. One ancient cathedral, to show evidence of its purpose of glorying God, used the best and most intricate brick and stone on the outside at the very top of the cathedral, not to be seen by the human eye, only the eyes of God.

In our sacred spaces we desire beauty. Worship is greatly enhanced when we see beauty. We all need places of beauty that remind us of the beauty of God and evoke worship from us.

A few years ago I took a trip to Washington DC with twenty-six fifth graders. As we walked into the National Cathedral I overheard a ten year old girl say, “This is beyond Wow!” Walking into a place like that you cannot help but say to yourself, “This is a holy place meant for the worship of God.”

I love the beauty of this space. And many people in the past eighty years have given their best to make this a place of beauty. Giving sacrificially of their money, some even mortgaging their homes. Others using their hands to repair and restore. Others preparing the space for the Holy to enter. Today we give thanks to God for them and for their faithfulness.

But even the grandeur of cathedrals and the beauty of sanctuaries and all the sacrifice that makes this space available does not mean worship always takes place. It is easy to make of this hour something other than the worship of God.

Religious advertisements and catalogs come to the church every few days filled with books and ideas on how to liven up worship. They have titles like “Worship That Will Turn Your Big Church Into a Really Big Church.” Many of the books have to do with punching up your preaching: “Fifty Funny Stories for the Pulpit,” “Sad, Sappy Stories Guaranteed to Make Them Cry,” “Safe, Simple, Shallow Sermons,” “Alliterative Outlines that Gladden, Glorify, and Glitter Gracefully,” and for the less articulate preachers, “Sermons That You Can Mime.” They also address other elements of worship like, “Hymns That You Can Whistle.”

It reminds me of the Garrison Keillor story of a touring evangelist who brings her “Gospel Birds” to Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church. She comes out in a white robe with colored birds all along both arms. They fly across the sanctuary in “V” formation. At the time of offering, members of the congregation hold up their dollar bills and the birds fly from pew to pew to pick them up. The show also features a re-enactment of the Noah’s ark story in which the birds, dressed up as other animals, enter the ark two by two. [1]

A couple of weeks ago we actually had our own gospel bird in here - a pigeon had flown into the sanctuary through an open window. Bill chased it around but we never found it. So you could be surprised today in worship. Some of you have been asking for a little more spontaneity in worship. Well the opportunity is here. I’m just kidding. Bill got it out. We think.

The cynical among us, and we know who we are, think that it’s easier than ever to miss the point. Why do we keep coming to worship every Sunday? If we’re here to be entertained, then we ought to admit that this isn’t much of a show. If we’re here for self-improvement, then we need to know that therapy might be more useful. If we come here in order to feel good, then breakfast in bed with the newspaper or a good novel might be a better choice.

We are called first and foremost to be a house of prayer and worship for all people. The only reason good enough to bring us here is the worship of God. There are secondary purposes: being together, building community, sharing concerns. But first and foremost, we are here to lift up our hearts to the One Who Made Us in order to be transformed by the One Who Is Redeeming Us. If not, we’re missing the point.

As we reflect upon our church living into a new century of life together, worship and prayer must be at the very center. In worship and prayer we find our vision and our strength to be the people of God. Jesus made it clear when he said, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.

Worship, above all else, is prayer. Every element of worship should be designed to help you pray. To help you say to God, “I love you, God” and “thank you, God” and “help me, God” and “God, please help these others.”

All true worship is prayer, helping you offer yourself to God, and helping you listen for God. The church is to be a house of prayer and worship where we come to seek God, to know God, and to love God.

It is important to know that such prayerful worship can be a dangerous activity. You never know what might happen to change your life. Perhaps we should post large signs on the doors of the sanctuary that say, “Enter at your own risk!” For Jesus just might walk in and start overturning hearts and lives, never to be the same again.

You may want to keep your children away. They might just listen one day and hear a call to something different than what you have planned for them. Don’t let the beauty fool you: Houses of prayer and worship are dangerous places.

They are also places of joy when they are houses of prayer for all people. Only then are they true sanctuaries. God’s house of prayer is not a house for the morally and spiritually superior. It is a house of prayer for all people. The true church is the church that opens its doors of worship, prayer and fellowship to all and extends the welcome of Christ to all without distinction and with no hierarchy of sins and sinners. No one is excluded from God’s house. No one is a second class citizen within its walls or beyond them. Whosoever will come we must welcome as Christ welcomes. The true church is a house of prayer for all people.

I am grateful that so many people throughout the years have found the welcome of Christ in this house of prayer when they could not find it any where else. I would much rather be a part of a community guilty of welcoming too many than turning away any whom God loves.

Such inclusivity brings the joy of the gospel into our midst, and it fills our worship with a gladness beyond the walls of this world. It is a reminder that we are all children of God in need of grace.

Theologian Karl Barth said about preaching what is also true about the entirety of worship. He says, “Never lose a sense of humor about yourself.” A sense of humor in worship is not only a sign of humility but also a celebration that signifies the gospel’s great good news. “With Easter,” says Jurgen Moltmann, “the laughter of the redeemed. . . begins. Because God in Christ has broken the power of sin and death, congregations and preachers are free to laugh at themselves. They can mock hell and dance on the grave of death and sin.” Joy. And great laughter.

Tom Long, who teaches preaching at Candler School of Theology at Emory in Atlanta, tells of growing up us a child and worshiping in a small clapboard church in the red-clay farming land of rural Georgia. They were a congregation of simple folk, farmers and schoolteachers mainly, and the ministers led worship wearing inexpensive and ill-fitting dark suits, believing that robes were a sign of ostentation. (Can you imagine people thinking such?)

During the heavy heat of the summer months, Sunday worship included the waving of funeral home fans and the swatting of gnats. All the windows and doors of the sanctuary were opened wide to accept whatever merciful breezes might blow through.

On some Sundays, however, it was not a draft that blew in the church door but a neighborhood dog, a stray hound of indecipherable lineage who somehow found the worship service irresistible. He was not there every Sunday, but his summer appearances were frequent enough that some joked he had a better attendance record in worship than many of the church officers.

The ushers knew better than to try to run him off. They tried it only once and that drove him bounding toward the pulpit. So while the congregation sang hymns, the dog would sniff around at the ankles of the worshipers. Ushers would step around him on their way to take up the offering, and during the prayers of the people the dog would wander aimlessly about the room. He was an endless source of laughter and entertainment for the children, and he occasionally served as a handy and spontaneous sermon illustration with such references as “no more sense of right and wrong than that dog over there.”

Long reflects on that time. I give you his words:

Looking back on it now, I realize what a trial it must have been for our ministers to attempt to lead worship and to preach on those Sundays when this mongrel was scampering around the building and nuzzling the feet of the congregation. I readily confess that I do not covet similar circumstances for myself, but there was something wonderful about those times as well. Whatever else it may mean, a dog loose in worship unmasks all pretense and undermines false dignity. It was clear to us all that the grace and joy and power present in our communion, and these were present in abundance, were not of our own making. We were, after all, people of little worldly standing who could not keep even our most solemn moments free of stray dogs. I want to believe that even our dark-suited, serious-faced ministers were aware of the poetic connection between a congregation of simple farmers and teachers in their Sunday best with a hound absurdly loose in their midst and a gathering of frail human beings astonishingly saved by the grace of God, grace they did not control but could only receive as a gift. If so, then in some deep and silent place within them they were surely taken with rich and cleansing laughter - and if they were, they were better (Christians and) preachers of the gospel for it. [2]

There have been high and holy moments of transformation and laughter in this place. And we are better Christians for them.

This sanctuary has been a holy place for literally thousands of people. A great cloud of witnesses gather here every week. When Paul Duke preached here a few weeks ago afterwards he said he could actually see the faces of the past scattered around this room and where they used to sit.

What a sacred space! What a holy history!

Built 81 years ago, this house of worship has been a sacred place for many of us.

We have been married here.
We have grieved here.
(Hopefully not at the same time.)

We have laughed and cried here.

We have heard the summons to follow Christ in this place and been washed in the waters of baptism.

We have come to cast our anxiety upon God and have found hands beneath us and arms around us. We discovered in this place that the One Who Made Us is the One Who Loves Us Most.

We have come here week after week in search of transcendence, something beyond ourselves, and raised our heads and seen God’s shining face.

In this place, we have come face to face with our own sin and felt the touch of grace and forgiveness upon our tongues in bread and wine, and upon our hearts in a spoken word, a moment of silence, a song, a prayer, a hymn, an anthem.

We have come, as the psalms instruct us, to lift songs to God with hearts full of joy, accompanied by the triumphant sounds of organ and trumpet or the gentle strings of guitar and cello.

And as Jesus did the disciples, we have felt Christ lift his hands and bless us and our children.

We have come to offer prayers for those we know who are suffering.

And, like the disciples, praying and waiting for the Spirit to come at Pentecost, many of us have found our calling in this place to go where God sends us and the courage to be a person for God out in the world.

That’s what happens when we meet God in authentic worship. Tears of repentance. Songs of joy. Cries of grief. Moments of transformation. Sounds of silence. A touch of healing and blessing. And yes, laughter. The great laughter of redemption.

If these walls could speak . . . Who says they don’t?

___________________

1. Garrison Keillor, “Gospel Birds,” audio book, 1989.
2. Thomas Long, The Witness of Preaching, 16-17.

April 27, 2008 - "How Do We Talk About Our Faith In A Pluralistic World?"

2008-04-29T19:44:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Easter 6
April 27, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

HOW DO WE TALK
ABOUT OUR FAITH
IN A PLURALISTIC WORLD?

Acts 17:22-34; Psalm 66:8-20; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21

A couple of weeks ago the city of Louisville awoke to the ground shifting beneath our feet. Tremors from a real live earthquake. For the past couple of decades the religious landscape has also been shifting beneath our feet. Tremors from a real live faithquake, to use a word by Leonard Sweet.

If you fell asleep in 1950 and woke up today you would perhaps feel as though you had traveled to another planet, religiously speaking. It is a very different world than the one in which most us grew up. In the 1950's cutting edge Interfaith Conversations would have taken place between Baptists and Catholics. Today the conversations take place between Christians and Jews and Buddhists and Muslims.

Back in 1950 many Christians did not even know someone of another religion. Today Buddhists and Jews and Muslims and Christians are neighbors.

Fifty years ago the Bible was the only holy book most of us knew existed. Now we are aware of the Koran, The Bhaghava Gita, and the Tao Te Ching. In this new world, there is no longer just one holy book embraced by all as the authority on religious truth. In this new world there are voices from various other religions calling for the freedom to express their faith and not be forced to practice Christianity by praying the Lord’s Prayer at a high school football game or going to court to find the Ten Commandments hanging there.

It’s a whole new world. We call it “postmodern” and “pluralistic,” even “post-Christian.” (And if you define being Christian according to the teachings of Jesus, I’m not sure our world or nation ever was Christian.)

“Pluralism” is the recognition of other voices of religious authority and the diversity of cultures living together in one place.

“Postmodernism” is a rejection of the idea that the only truth we can know is that which can be proven by the modern scientific method. In some of its forms, postmodernism denies the reality of absolute truth altogether. Many postmoderns do not believe there is a such thing as absolute truth: Whatever is true for me may not be true for you.

The faithquake that is taking place is a move beyond that which is logical and rational to the experiential. More and more people today are embracing what we have often called the supernatural. People are very much into spirituality these days. Spirituality of all stripes. All you need to do is check out the local bookstore.

And has this evermore created an earthquake within the church. Some within the church have so strongly rebelled against postmodernism and our pluralistic society that they have narrowed the definition of truth so thin that they exclude all who disagree with them. I do not think that is the most helpful response to the world in which we live.

This morning I want us to think together about what it means to share our faith in this new world. How do we go about fulfilling the Great Commission to go into all the world sharing the gospel and making disciples?

Let me begin by saying that I think we as genuine Baptists are best suited for a postmodern world because of our emphasis on individual freedom. The last thing our postmodern pluralistic world is going to listen to is the church telling them how wrong their beliefs are and forcing down their throats what we think are the right beliefs. No one is led to change their minds or to understand something in a new way when they are told their beliefs are stupid and that they must see things our way because we alone possess the truth about God. For us to be able to say as Baptist Christians that we respect every person’s right to believe as they feel led to believe will go a long way in gaining an audience for us to share our faith.

There is a fascinating conversation going on these days among those who call themselves part of the Emergent Church. Some within this group believe the church is in the midst of such a seismic shift it is not an understatement to call it a Reformation, equivalent to the changes that came with the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago. I tend to agree with them. One of the leaders, Tony Jones, has written a remarkable book entitled The New Christians.

The Emergent Church includes conservatives and progressives who together are seeking a third way between fundamentalism and liberalism. They are creating faith communities made up of people from all political and theological perspectives. They do not all believe the same thing. But one thing they do hold in common is the conviction that God’s truth comes to us best as we talk about scripture and share our faith experiences together in community.

They are often accused of not believing in absolute truth, but as Jones writes, “We believe in absolute truth, we just don’t believe we can know what it is.” It is a humble and open approach to belief and faith. And I, for one, think it is the way church ought to be. Whenever we talk about God, Paul tells us we see through a glass dimly. We can only know in part. Therefore humility and openness is required.

That doesn’t mean we take the stance that all truth is relative. It does mean that as Christians we do not possess the whole truth about God or the world. And that humble acknowledgment is one of the best places to start when talking about our faith with others.

In our epistle lesson for today, Peter tells us to be prepared to give an account of the hope that is within us, to be ready to talk about our faith, but to do so with gentleness and reverence.

It is crucial, I think, to look at the world and realize why many of us hold to the particular faith that we do. If the truth be told, many of us are Christian simply because of the home in which we are raised. This is not the case with all Christians, but it is true about most of us. For most of us our parents or grandparents were Christian, and they made sure we were in a Christian church.

And if our home was not Christian chances were very strong that if we were going to adopt any religion it would be Christian simply because of the country in which we live.

Though other religions are growing in this country, the largest number of religious people in America are Christian. And if you are born into this country to parents of no religious persuasion, if you adopt a particular religion on your own, chances are in America it will be Christian. Even more so if you live in the American South, a South Flannery O’Connor characterized as not so much Christ-centered as Christ-haunted. Jesus is everywhere, distorted though he may be. He is the shining silver buckle on the Bible belt.

What I want us to realize is that being Christian for most of us wasn’t a choice as much as it was something into which we grew. Yes, we chose to be baptized and join the church, but for most of us there wasn’t much of a chance that we would choose another religion.

And the reason why this is important to realize is because the same is true for people who grow up in other parts of the world. If you had grown up in India you can almost be certain that you would be Hindu rather than Christian. If you were born in Iraq or Iran, you can almost be assured that you would be Muslim. You would know nothing else.

To be a Muslim and have a Christian missionary living near you in Iran, sharing with you about the Christian faith, would seem as strange to you as it would today to have a Muslim missionary living in your neighborhood now trying to evangelize you and your Christian family into the Muslim faith.

The truth of the matter is I cannot say, just as you cannot say, that we would be Christian today had we been raised in a Muslim or Jewish home. Chances are we would not. And we must rid ourselves of the notion that all Buddhists and Hindus and Jews and others of non-Christian religions are heathen pagans who recognize Christianity as true but refuse to accept it.

Muslim children sit on their grandma’s knee and hear stories of Mohammed. Buddhist children hear stories of Buddha and how to follow the path of Enlightenment. Jews gather as a family every year around the table at Passover to tell their defining story of how God delivered them out of slavery in Egypt. These are not families who are intentionally leading their children astray from what they believe to be the truth of Christianity. Rather, they believe in their hearts just as we believe in ours that their particular path to God is real and true.

Other religions and those who practice them deserve our respect. Several years ago I was part of a series of interfaith conversations and one Jewish man shared how rare it is to find a Jewish child who has not been told by some Christian that they and their family are going to Hell. To tell a child that is not in the least bit Christian.

It makes me think of Southern Baptist evangelist Bailey Smith’s words on the platform of the Southern Baptist Convention when he proclaimed to a standing ovation, “God Almighty does not hear the prayers of a Jew.” Who are we to say whom God will or will not listen to!

I believe that God Almighty hears the prayers of every Jew and the prayers of every human being created in God’s image. And every person, no matter what their religion, deserves our respect for the beliefs they hold dear, as long as those beliefs do not bring harm to others.

We learn to respect one other’s religious beliefs by entering into conversation with those of other faiths. Recent books on evangelism are saying “count conversations, not conversions.” I believe it is a biblical model of evangelism, exemplified by Jesus and Paul.

You don’t have to share a person’s belief system to respect their faith. And we do not need to relinquish our beliefs and our convictions to the point of relativity whereby we say it doesn’t matter what you believe. It does matter. It matters to the Jew, to the Buddhist, the Hindu, and the Muslim, and they expect our beliefs to matter to us.

It is important as a Christian for you to maintain the centrality of Jesus for your life. Just do not be arrogant about it and force others to accept your beliefs. We must give others the same respect and freedom concerning their religion that we want for ourselves.

I want the freedom to personally believe in the centrality of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. I wholeheartedly believe that the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus point us to the one God of Creation more clearly than any other source of revelation we have known. Jesus brings God near to me. He is, to borrow John A. T. Robertson’s phrase, “the human face of God” for me. The Christian faith’s assertion is that Jesus Christ is our best glimpse into the mind and heart and being of God. Not the only revelation, but the most complete.

As for me, I seek to order my life around the Christian vision of reality, no doubt because it is what my parents and church have taught me since birth, but also because I find profound meaning in the Christian vision. The Christian story serves as the foundational lense through which I see and live in the world. The Christian story helps me make sense of the world. It provides me with a most meaningful way of relating to God, to others, and to all creation. The Christian vision envelopes my life and I believe the way of Jesus to be the way of truth and purposeful living. It is the basis of my hope for eternal life. And that is why I choose as an adult to be Christian and to be a pastor.

But in talking about my faith with others, I must realize that my Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim sisters and brothers believe as wholeheartedly in their faith as I do in mine. They read and seek to follow their sacred writings as I seek to follow mine. Their faith stories help them make sense of their world as do mine.

So how do we go about sharing our faith in this kind of pluralistic world?

There are those who would say we should not even hope for conversion in our conversations with others about faith. I would agree that it would be unethical to develop relationships with others with the hidden agenda to convert them. It is also, I think, unethical to “target” Jews or Muslims or Buddhists for evangelism. That turns people into objects. As to seeking conversion, when faith forms the foundation of our lives, it is a bit difficult to expect us not to want others to have our faith experience. So it is not about giving up altogether on conversion; it has to do with how we go about sharing our faith.

Looking at the story from Acts we read earlier, their situation looks similar to ours today. The Athenians are described as those who would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new - much like postmodernism. And as Paul talks with them he compliments them on how extremely religious they are. He is respectful of their objects of worship. And then he points to their altar that bears the inscription: “to an unknown god.” There appears to be an openness on the part of the Athenians to learn more about an unknown god.

And notice how respectful Paul was in speaking with them. Meeting them where they were in their own faith journeys, he says, “Let me share with you what I believe about this unknown God.” And he shares the story of his faith.

He tells them this God who made the earth and all that is within it is very near to each one of us. That it is this One in whom we live and move and have our being. And quoting from their own poets, seeking to draw from their religious traditions, he agrees with them that we are all God’s offspring.

Paul shared his faith by engaging the world and culture of his hearers. So can we with the music, movies, literature and arts of our culture.

And they listened to him, the text says. Some scoffed at him. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” Because of his respectful conversation with them about their own religion, Paul gained a hearing.

And so it seems to me that with the acknowledgment that one’s religion has a great deal to do with where we were born and the religion of our parents, as well as the confession that no one holds all the truth about God, it seems that we should seek to share our faith in a way that I would call Relational, Conversational, Experiential Evangelism. Or what Time magazine writer Michael Kinsley calls “non-coercive conversion.” We do not press our faith onto those who are not interested. Jesus called us to be witnesses, not a God-squad that coerces others to believe as we do.

We develop relationships with people and we talk about our faith experiences with each other. There is a song by Ken Medema that goes “Don’t tell me you’ve got a friend in Jesus without showing me first I’ve got a friend in you.” It’s about building relationships with people outside of the church.

We are not called to practice “hit and run” evangelism, meeting someone on the street, shoving a gospel tract in their face, and giving a five minute schpiel on how to go to heaven when you die. You never see anyone in the Bible doing evangelism that way because that’s not what being Christian is all about. Biblical evangelism is centered in relationship and community and the invitation to walk in the way of Jesus.

A recent study shows that adult converts these days come to Christianity through relationships. They encounter the gospel through a community of faith that permits people to discover faith for themselves, at their own pace, able to ask any question, and free to share their convictions without the risk of ridicule. For most people, “belonging comes before believing.” That is why relationships are so important.

Jesus calls us to be witnesses. And all a witness does is take the stand and says what he or she has seen and experienced. It is to say, “I have a relationship with Jesus that brings meaning and fulfillment to my life and I want to share my experience with you.”

The psalmist for today serves as an example of sharing her faith, telling what God has done for her. And that’s all we can do.

To be a witness is to enter into a respectful, open conversation with others about our faith. It is to say, “I’m not here to tell you how wrong you are. I’m here to learn what your faith tradition has to teach me, as well as share with you what my faith means to me.” Evangelism is a two-way conversation, not a one-way presentation.

And let us never forget that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to change people. We don’t convert people. We don’t win anyone to the Lord. We don’t make Christians. God does.

When John the gospel writer talks about the Holy Spirit, he speaks of the Spirit as one who leads us into truth, who convicts us, who abides with us always, and who provides us with the words to say at the appropriate time.

And so we nurture the life of the Spirit within us so that we will know what to say and when and how to do so with gentleness and reverence.

Our task is to simply be a witness. A witness to the full truth about what it means to be Christian. Becoming Christian is more than just saying a prayer asking Jesus into your heart. It runs deeper than a set of beliefs about Jesus.

Becoming Christian is:
about making a decision about how you will live the rest of your life.

It is to say,

“I will follow in the way of Jesus -
loving God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength;
loving my neighbor as I love myself,
loving my enemy,
feeding the hungry,
standing on the side of the poor,
denying myself for the well-being of others,
living in community with other Christians in the body of Christ.”

And to do so empowered by God’s love. We follow in the way of Jesus basking in the warm glow of God’s grace, assured of God’s presence every step of the way.

To be Christian is to know you are accepted by God, loved by God, forgiven by God, and called by God to live life walking in the way of Jesus.

That is the faith we live. That is the faith to which we are we called to give witness. Not arrogantly or coercively, but humbly and freely, respectfully and lovingly. Simply go and tell what Jesus means to you. And with God’s help, may the life you live mirror the words you say.

April 20, 2008 - "Who Will You Be When You Grow Up?"

2008-04-29T19:40:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
The Fifth Sunday of Easter
April 20, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

WHO WILL YOU BE
WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Acts 7:55-60; Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:1-10; John 14:1-14

Someone in my house was recently sent home from school with a book entitled Hands Are Not For Hitting. I know you think you know who it is, but Cindy is not in school right now. (And I’m grateful for the providence of God that has her working in the nursery when I say stuff like that! My mistake will probably be in overestimating your spiritual maturity in keeping secrets from her. But you could surprise me.)

It seems this particular family member has not yet learned how to respond when he or she does not get what he or she wants.

It’s a wonderful little book that tells us what our hands are made for and the hurt that is caused when we use them inappropriately. I recommend its purchase for anyone in your family who is unsure what to do with their hands. And it seems to have the power of scripture to transform because after one evening of reading the book this person was no longer hitting people, and they were repeating the refrain, “Hands are not for hitting.”

However, we had to give the book back, and a week later, it had started up again. You know why? Because for any change to last, spiritual formation is required. Our actions always stem from who we are on the inside and to change requires that we be shaped spiritually. And there are no quick fixes in the realm of spiritual formation. But spiritual formation in the way of Jesus is the primary purpose of the church.

Writer and pastor John Ortberg tells of a man in his church he calls Hank. Hank had attended church since he was a boy, and now was in his sixties. He was known by everyone - but no one really liked him. He had difficulty loving his wife. His children could not speak freely with him and felt no affection from him. He was not concerned for the poor, had little tolerance for those outside the church, and tended to judge harshly those who were inside.

One day someone in the church asked him, “Hank, are you happy?”
Without smiling, he responded, “Yes.”

“Well, then,” the person replied, “tell your face.”

Hank’s outward demeanor mirrored a deeper and much more tragic reality: Hank was not changing. He was not being transformed. He was not growing toward Christlikeness.

But here’s what is most remarkable: Nobody in the church was surprised by this. No one called an emergency meeting of the church leaders to consider this strange case of a person who wasn’t changing. No one really expected Hank to change, so no one was surprised when it didn’t happen.

There were other expectations in the church. People expected that Hank would attend services, give money, and do church work. But no one expected that day by day, month by month, decade by decade, Hank would be transformed and grow more and more into the likeness of Jesus. People did not expect he would become a progressively more loving, joyful, and winsome person. So they were not shocked when it did not happen. [1]

In various ways throughout the Bible, we are encouraged to grow spiritually, to be transformed, to become more like Jesus. Our epistle reading for today calls us to grow into salvation, into wholeness, into the person God created us to be.

But do we really expect one another to change and to grow in Christlikeness? I will say it again: The primary purpose of the church is spiritual formation in the way of Jesus. We should expect change in one another. We should expect each other to become more Christlike as we grow older.

How do we grow into salvation, into Christlikeness?

Dallas Willard is a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. He is also a prolific writer on the spiritual life and discipleship in particular. For our help in spiritual formation he offers the acronym “VIM,” as in the phrase “vim and vigor.” “Vim” is a derivative of the Latin term “vis” (v-i-s), referring to direction, strength, energy, virtue; and sometimes having to do the nature and essence of something or someone.

The V stands for Vision: Who are we are and who are we called to be?
The I stands for Intention: Do we intend to live and become this kind of person?
The M stands for Method and Means: What are we going to do in order to become this person? [2]

VISION

We must have a vision of who we are and who we are called to become.

Peter tells us, we who are Gentiles: Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. That’s who we are. We belong to God, created in God’s image, of infinite worth to God, made to live in love with God and one another.

Two weeks ago in the Karen worship service, someone told the story about his mother being mistreated at work. His mother was told that in essence the Karen people were zeroes. This of course, broke his heart. So he went home that night and prayed. He heard nothing from God. The next morning he woke up and God spoke to him. God said, “I am One. And when you put a One in front of a Zero, you have ten. And you put another Zero after that you have a hundred and then a thousand. With me,” God said, “the Karen are never Zeroes!”

With God no one is a Zero. Not even the ignorant person who had no idea to whom he was speaking. We are all of us God’s people. God’s children. God’s beloved. We must hold before us that vision of ourselves, along with the vision of the kind of people God is creating us to be.

Because you see, if we were insignificant zeroes, our spiritual ruin would not be so heartbreaking. But we are not insignificant zeroes. We are God’s people. It matters who we become.

Our biblical texts this morning describe and give examples of the kind of people God wants us to become. This is what it looks like when we “grow into salvation,” to use Peter’s phrase. This is who we will be when we grow up.

1. To begin with, we will be people filled with the Holy Spirit. This is not only a part of the vision of who are called to be. It is also the means by which we become Christlike. We are filled with the Holy Spirit.

It was said of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, that he was filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:55). And when we are filled with Holy Spirit on the inside, we will put away, as Peter said, all malice and guile and insincerity and envy and slander, and we will produce in our lives what the Bible calls fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

That is the kind of person the Holy Spirit shapes into being. And if that is not who we are becoming then something is wrong. If you want to know whether or not you are growing, ask the members of your family. That should make for a pleasant ride home. But they know us better than anyone.

The role of the Holy Spirit is crucial in our spiritual growth. Because simply trying to act more lovingly will only lead to despair. It is the work of God’s Spirit in the depths of our being that enables us to grow in Christlikeness.

2. Perhaps the most difficult part of spiritual growth is forgiving those who hurt us. We have our model both Jesus and Stephen (Acts 7:60) who, when they are being killed, ask God to forgive them and to not hold their sin against them.

Forgiveness is crucial to the spiritual life. Because we all have to live with the Hanks of the world. And while they are changing and growing, it is part of our spiritual formation to learn to forgive them as they say and do hurtful things.

We also have to remember that there is a Hank inside us all, still changing, still growing toward Christlikeness. And others will need to forgive us too.

3. A third part of the vision of the person growing into salvation is trusting God and depending upon God’s leading and guiding in your life.

Jesus said, “Do not let your heart be troubled; trust in God, trust in me” (John 14:1). The psalmist prayed, “For your name’s sake, O Lord, lead me and guide me” (Psalm 31:3). The person growing into salvation is the person leaning less and less upon their own understanding and trusting God more and more, allowing God to shape our decisions, and living more at peace in the world with a heart less troubled.

4. The fourth part of the vision has to do with living in community with others. It takes great spiritual maturity to choose to live with others and to grow together in spiritual formation. Community is hard work. You have to live with the Hanks of the world. And others have to live with the Hank inside of you. It is easier to avoid community, especially with those who are different than you. It is easier to just gather with a small group of friends.

But scripture reminds us that we are all God’s people and that the whole world is made up of God’s children. As the church, Peter says we must let ourselves be built into a spiritual house and a holy priesthood, for we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people (1 Peter 2:5,9).

A sign of growing up spiritually is to be able to live in community with others, some of whom we may not like. And in the midst of community grow in Christlikeness.

That is the vision of who God wants us to as we grow up: filled with the Holy Spirit, producing fruit of the Spirit, forgiving those who hurt us, trusting God more and more to lead and guide us, and to do so living in community with one another. In essence, we are to be people who embody the kingdom of God, the kingdom of justice and joy and righteousness.

INTENTION

The question we each must ask ourselves is whether or not this is our Intention? Do you intend to grow and change and be transformed into Christlikeness? Have you ever decided: This is the kind of person I am going to become. I’m going to bring every element of my being, working from the inside out, into harmony with the will of God and the character of Jesus.

We must intend the vision if it is to be realized.

A man meets a woman at a party, and he is stunned by her beauty. He thinks to himself, “I cannot let this women get away. I’ve got to figure out some way to create a connection.” So he says to her, “You know, I may not look like much, but my father is a very wealthy man, and he’s in bad health. He’s an old guy. He’s not going to live more than two years at the most. And when he dies, I will be worth fifty million dollars.” Well, you can tell the woman is impressed. She asks for his business card. Three days later he gets a note from her informing him that she is now his stepmother.

This woman caught a vision. Then she set her intentions upon obtaining that vision. And then she discovered the means and method whereby to make that vision a reality.

Of course, that’s not exactly the vision, intention, and method we are striving for as we grow into salvation. But it is an example of how often we set our hearts on something and do what we have to do to make that vision a reality.

What is the vision of your life? Have you set your heart on growing toward Christlikeness? Is Christlikeness something you intend for your life?

METHOD AND MEANS

If it is, then there are methods and means by which you make your vision a reality. To grow, to change, to be more loving, forgiving, trusting, requires more than intention; it requires: one, a reliance upon the Spirit of God to work within us; and two, it requires effort on our part through spiritual disciplines and practices through which God can shape us inwardly.

It’s what Peter was talking about when he said we must long for pure spiritual milk so that we might grow into salvation (1 Peter 2:2). We long for this, Peter says, because we have “tasted the kindness of the Lord.”

He’s talking about nourishing our souls on the basics of spiritual formation: prayer, scripture, worship, reflecting on God’s goodness, meditating on the person and teachings of Jesus, setting aside the time where we can be filled with God’s Spirit.

Our actions spring from who we are inside. Our inner being has to change. The process of spiritual formation is a renovation of the mind, the emotions, the heart, the will, the spirit, the body, and the soul to the point where the entire self is organized around God and fully integrated under God.

Is that what your want for your life? Well that is why we are here: to grow together into Christlikeness. May it be our vision and intention. And may God grant us the means to make it so. Amen.
_____________________

1. John Ortberg, Laurie Pederson, Judson Poling, Fully Devoted: Living Each Day in Jesus’ Name, Zondervan, 2000, 15-16
2. Dallas Willard, Renovation of the Heart, NavPress, 2002, 85-91

April 6, 2008 - "The Beloved Community"

2008-04-09T20:22:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
The Third Sunday of Easter
April 6, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

THE BELOVED COMMUNITY

Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35

(Holy Communion)

This past Friday, April 4, marked the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. One of the wisest, courageous and most inspiring individuals to ever walk the face of this earth, he deserves every street and building named in his honor.

He dared to dream of what he called “the beloved community” and “the solidarity of the human family.” It was the dream of a nation and a world where his children and all people would not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character. He faced what seemed to be the insurmountable forces of racism and hatred embedded in church and state. Yet he, along with the thousands he inspired, victoriously faced such evil forces with the power of the spoken word and actions of non-violent love.

King proclaimed that our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation. His was a vision of a completely integrated society, a community of love and justice wherein brotherhood would be an actuality in all of social life.

He sought integration more than desegregation. Integration, as King understood it, is much more inclusive and positive than desegregation. Desegregation is essentially negative in that it eliminates discrimination against blacks through laws, whereas integration requires a positive change in attitudes. It involves personal and social relationships that are created by love - and these cannot be legislated. King knew that once segregation had been abolished and desegregation accomplished, blacks and whites would still have to learn how to relate to each other across those barriers which have traditionally separated them in our society. All of us would have to become color blind.

In speaking about the possibility of actualizing the Beloved Community in history, King attempted to avoid what he called “a superficial optimism” on the one hand, and “a crippling pessimism” on the other. He hoped it could at least exist in isolated forms in some group life. In his mind, such a community would be the ideal corporate expression of the Christian faith. [1]

As we dream of such a world, we have to start here in this place, the community of faith. The church is a training ground, a school for life in the world. Over the past year our congregation has begun to look more like the diverse world in which we live. And we are still learning how to live as Christians in a fully integrated congregation.

Clarence Jordan, in his Cotton Patch version, translates the beginning of our epistle lesson to say, “If you claim as Father the One who utterly disregards a man’s race and is concerned only with the way he acts, then carry out your Christian commitment with fear and trembling.”

If the church is to be a training ground for creating a beloved community in the world it is essential that we learn what it means to act like Christians and love one another.

Jesus told his disciples in the Upper Room as they broke bread together the night before he died that he was giving them a new commandment to love one another as he had loved them. And that it was by that love that the world would know they were his disciples. Love is so central to being Christian that scripture says, “If you say you love God and don’t love your brother or sister, you are a liar.”

Genuine Mutual Love Deeply From the Heart

Peter calls us to have “genuine mutual love” and to “love one another deeply from the heart.” He calls us to an authentic, sincere, unhypocritical love without false pretense. Not the sweet smile through clenched teeth that gossips behind a person’s back or rolls the eyes when the other speaks.

It is a mutual love, shared among brothers and sisters in the human family, especially the family of faith. It is a love where all are treated as equals.

It comes deeply from the heart, a heart trained in obedience, shaped by the love of God. And yet, it is not a love that comes just in obedience to a command. But a love that is constant and enduring, unshaken by adversity or shifting circumstances.

The Difficulties With Love

To learn to love with a pure love and to allow God to create among us a beloved community, we must begin with God’s love for us. The love of God for us defines love and makes it possible. It is the source of all genuine loves. It is the source we return to time and time again when love is so difficult.

Love is difficult for many reasons. The writings of Christian ethicist Sondra Wheeler have helped me a great deal this week as I have sought to understand the difficulties we have with love. [2] She talks about how we both do and suffer wrong in our human relationships, and how our failures in love confront us with the weaknesses in ourselves - our honest errors, our limitations in wisdom and insight and understanding. We are unable to clearly see into another’s heart and we are only partly acquainted with our own. Many times we lack not only the wisdom to love well but also the courage to love faithfully when it is hard or costly to do so. We are often fearful, driven by the impulse to protect ourselves. Our loves are challenged and frequently compromised by a kind of selfishness. [3]

It is no great revelation to say that human beings tend to be self-centered and self-absorbed. When basic needs of love and companionship go unmet, the pain tempts us to ensure our needs are met by controlling others. Human loves not anchored in the reality of Christ’s redemptive love depend for their survival on their ability to give us what we want. [4]

But if we only love and do good to those who love us and can give us what we want, Jesus asks, what do we do more than unbelievers? The lack of love one often finds in Christian community leads you to wonder whether the things we say we believe make any real difference in our lives.

Our failures in love teach us it is more about the person we have become than it is what we say we believe. Peter says that those who show genuine love are those whose hearts have been trained in obedience to the truth - the truth about who we are and why we humans act the way we do, and the truth about the kind of person God wants to shape us to be.

When disagreements arise and tempers flare, the important thing is not about declaring who is right and who is wrong. The important thing is to realize that most likely the other person is suffering in some way and that people tend to behave badly when they are in pain. A little bit of reflection may then make you wonder whether your being in pain has led you to behave badly as well. [5]

Love can be so difficult and painful we would probably turn away from relationships altogether if it were not for one thing: We crave love like we crave air. We long for it and reach for it and hope for it against all odds and beyond all reason because we must. In some basic sense love is what we live for. I believe it’s because Love is what we were made for. [6]

What is Love?

To know what love is and how to love others we hear Christ’s daunting call to love one another as he has loved us - all the way to sacrifice. We love because God first loved us. Human loves cannot flourish without something like the self-giving love of God. The love of God that reaches across barriers and offenses and takes on itself the task of reconciliation, even where we are the offended party. [7]

The question comes: Are we are willing to love as God loves? Frankly, we are not willing. We are often moved by Jesus’ picture of unconditional love. We claim the Sermon on the Mount as one of our favorite portions of scripture. But when it comes to acting according to Jesus’ teaching, we quickly find that we don’t really want closeness to God on those terms.

A three year old girl was sent into her room to pick up the toys she had scattered from one end of it to the other. Her mother went in to check on her a few minutes later and found her sitting contentedly on the floor playing with something, the toys still scattered everywhere. When asked why she had not picked up any of her toys she answered with remarkable clarity: “I can’t want to.” [8]

How Do We Love Rightly?

So how do we love rightly?

1. To love rightly requires our receiving and our dependence upon the gift of the Holy Spirit. When Peter preached at Pentecost, the people asked him what they must do to be saved, to be whole, and he said, “Repent, be baptized, so that sins are forgiven, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

We need a love grounded in something stronger and deeper than our own capacities to see truthfully and care faithfully. It will be the Holy Spirit within that enables us to love one another as Christ as loved us. We cannot do it on our own.

2. To love rightly calls for continual repentance and change and transformation of the heart. It is to change our “want to.” Peter will go on to say “put away all malice and guile and insincerity and envy and slander.”

3. To love rightly calls us to remember our baptism, that we are each of us the beloved of God who have committed our lives to the way of Jesus, which is the way of love. Our loves must be governed by the realization that each and every person is first and last and always the daughter or son of God, redeemed by Christ and claimed by him for God’s own.

Richard Niebuhr says that love is rejoicing over the existence of the beloved . . . it is profound satisfaction over everything that makes him great and glorious. Love is gratitude; it is thankfulness for the existence of the beloved. Love is reverence . . . it rejoices in the otherness of the other; it desires the beloved to be what she is and does not seek to refashion her into a replica of the self. Rejoicing. Gratitude. Reverence. Respect. That is love. [9]

4. To love rightly calls us to the forgiveness of sins - to remember that our sins are forgiven and that we must forgive. We pray it every Sunday: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

So many of our offenses against God take the form of failures in fairness, honesty, patience, and kindness toward other people. Wheeler says that confession offers a constant reminder that we hurt others as often as we are hurt, and that we disappoint as often as we are disappointed by those we love. The practices of confession and pardon remind us that our connections to God and one another rest not on success but on mercy, and that forgiveness is the ordinary texture of a shared life. [1]0

At the Corner of Fourth and Walnut

One of the most beautiful visions of an all-encompassing love was penned by another visionary who died unexpectedly the same year King did, 1968. Ten years earlier Thomas Merton had his own epiphany of “a beloved community.” March 18th of this year marked the 50th anniversary of that epiphany occurring right here in Louisville at the corner of Fourth and Walnut (now Muhammed Ali), right at the edge of what is now Fourth Street Live. The placard and a portion of the quote can be found on the cover of your bulletin. He writes:

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, so that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation. . .

The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream . . .

We belong to God. Yet so does everybody else . . .

There are no strangers . . .

The sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud . . .

It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race . . .

If only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are walking around shining like the sun. . . .
It was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more greed. I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other. . . .

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God . . .

It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven . . .

I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. The gate of heaven is everywhere. [11]

We find in these inspired words what it means to love in the beloved community. If only we as a congregation could see each other like this and love in this way.

To love is to realize we all belong to each other and to God.

To love is to realize we are not alien to one another even though we may be total strangers.

To love is to realize we are no longer isolated, separate, but one beloved community.

To love is to make sure all people have the necessities of life.

To love is to no longer judge by the color of skin but by the content of character (and to judge character with grace and forgiveness).

To love is to listen to each other with the heart.

To love is to see people walking around shining like the sun, and to try to tell them they are. Someone recently told me they were sitting on an airplane and all of a sudden everyone he saw was walking around shining like the sun. It can still happen today if only we have eyes to see.

To love like this is indeed to walk through the gate of heaven.

The psalmist asked the question today: What will I do in return for God’s bountiful goodness? More than anything else, what God wants is for us to love one another. That will be more than enough to make God’s heart sing. Because our acts of genuine mutual love are snapshots of reality into God’s original dream, the dream of the beloved community.

*****************

1. Kenneth L. Smith and Ira G. Zepp, Jr., “Martin Luther King’s Vision of the Beloved Community,” Christian Century, April 3, 1974, 361-363
2. Sondra Wheeler, What We Were Made For: Christian Reflections on Love, Jossey-Bass, 2007
3. Ibid., 1-2
4. Ibid., 27, 41, 46
5. Ibid., 121
6. Ibid., xiii
7. Ibid., 18-19
8. Ibid., 170
9. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Purpose of the Church and Its Ministry, HarperCollins, 1956, 35, as quoted in Wheeler, 52)
10. Wheeler, 59
11. Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Doubleday, 1966, 140-142

March 30, 2008 - "Embrace the World"

2008-04-05T18:19:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
The Second Sunday of Easter
March 30, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

EMBRACE THE WORLD
(A Global Missions Emphasis)
Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16; 1 Peter 1:3-9; John 20:19-31

I have been a North Carolina Tar Heel fan since I was 12 years old. (I realize that, given the preacher’s context, that may be the worst opening line to a sermon - ever! But give me a shot at redemption.) When I was twelve, it was the day of Dean Smith, Michael Jordan, James Worthy, and Sam Perkins in Tar Heel Nation. And I fell in love with Carolina Blue.

Before last night’s game I was already feeling divided inside. Louisville has been my home team for three years now. And I knew a Louisville win would make many people I love happy. I was still surprised, however, when at the end of the game as North Carolina was cutting down the nets on their way to the Final Four, I felt sadness. Throughout the game I found my loyalty running red.

So perhaps a small conversion took place last night and I’m learning to more fully embrace the world in which I live. (And that line, given today’s theme, may the weakest transition from an introduction to the body of a sermon. But it is offered in love and with an intention to connect with my congregation. So do with it what you will!)

Tools With Which to Embrace the World

This is the Second Sunday of Easter and our Gospel Lesson lets us in on a meeting with Jesus and his disciples on the evening of that first Easter.

For the past three years Jesus has changed their lives in immeasurable ways. Now the transformation is about to go further and deeper and wider. But first he has to meet them where they are. And he does.

.......Peace

The Risen Christ, having been freed from death, appears to the disciples who are behind locked doors, scared to death. And the first word he says to their fearful hearts is “Peace be with you.” Too frightened to participate in the liturgy, they forget to say, “And also with you.” Jesus understands. He will offer the word of peace twice more in their presence. Again, with no response from his frightened congregation.

.......Purpose

In addition to the gift of peace he gives them a calling. Sometimes you need a reason, a higher purpose to come out from behind the locked doors of your life. And so Jesus says to them: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

.......Power and Courage

But you need more than peace and purpose to move beyond your fears and into your calling. You need power and courage. So the Risen Christ who has been freed from death breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Jesus offers them the very presence and power of God to do what he’s calling them to do.

To Be Sent as Jesus Was Sent

“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” That is the Great Commission in the Gospel of John for all followers of Jesus.

But what does it mean to be sent as Jesus was sent?

.......How and Why Was Jesus Sent?

Well, why was Jesus sent? What was the nature of that sending?

Jesus was sent because God had a dream for the world. Throughout history God had revealed that dream to Moses and the prophets, and they preached it as best they could understand it. But people still didn’t seem to get it.

So, as Peter told the crowd in Acts, it was God’s plan to send Jesus into the world to teach us God’s ways. However, instead of listening to him we killed him. But God didn’t allow crucifixion to end the story. God raised Jesus from the dead, vindicating the message Jesus was sent to teach us.

What was that message? What was God’s dream?

Jesus called it the kingdom of God. And in many ways it turned upside down everything we believe about God and love and power and righteousness.

Jesus came to say that God loved the world unconditionally. God does not hate nor despise the world. God loves the world so much it breaks God’s heart into pieces to see the way we treat other. To see the rich and powerful oppress the poor and weak. To see how so many of us live so selfishly.

Jesus came to say that God’s dream for the world is justice and compassion and forgiveness, loving your enemies not killing them, even if they’re nailing you to a cross.

Jesus came to say that God’s kingdom is not about taking over the world. God’s kingdom is about giving yourself for the sake of the world.

Jesus came to say to those in political and religious power that they were to use their power to provide for the needy and to show mercy and to proclaim forgiveness.

Jesus came to say that God’s mercy is greater than God’s holiness. He came to say that God’s heart is made glad by those who hunger and thirst after righteousness and choose to do what is right and just. But he said that nothing causes heaven to throw a party of like someone being lifted up out of their sin and failure and surrounded with God’s mercy and grace.

And that’s why Jesus was killed. When you tell those in power that God is on the side of the weak and the poor, when you tell the religious right (that is religious people who believe themselves always to be right) that God is more about mercy and grace, you threaten the very foundation of their political and religious systems. You are called unpatriotic and labeled soft on sin. You are dangerous and you must be silenced.

And so they silenced Jesus. Or so they thought.

They hung him up on a cross for all the world to say. Their message was this: If this man is your King, you’re going to end up like this. And that’s why the disciples are behind closed doors locked in fear.

But less than three days after his crucifixion, God raised Jesus from the dead to inform those in power that Jesus was God’s Messiah who spoke the truth. And that the greatest power they had at their disposal - the threat of death - was not the greatest power in the world.

Resurrection power was now forever loose in the world.

.......How and Why Are We Sent?

And in the power of resurrection Jesus sends us out into the world just as God had sent him.

I don’t know about you but that makes me more than a little nervous

We are the ones now entrusted with God’s dream for the world.

We are now the Body of Christ sent out into the world to love and embrace the world, not despise it or destroy it. We are sent to call the world to justice, to decrease the gap between the rich and poor, to embrace simplicity and live generously, to shower the world with compassion and forgiveness, even to our enemies as we seek to make them friends and live together in peace, and to find those who have fallen and lift them up in the grace and mercy of God.

And know this: when you do heaven will throw a party and God will weep in joy. But the politically powerful and the religiously righteous will hate you because you threaten the very foundation of their political and religious systems. You will be called unpatriotic and labeled soft on sin. And they will seek to silence you.

And they just might.

But the living hope of Easter, rooted in the resurrection of Jesus, tells us that death is not the final power and doesn’t have the final word. So we need not fear death.

God’s Kingdom will live on. The seeds you plant will flourish long after you’re gone.

Resurrection power is forever loose in the world.

Transition to “Embrace the World” Video

Over the next few weeks you are going to hear the stories of people who have been captured by God’s dream for the world and have chosen to embrace the world where God has sent them. Places like Brooklyn and India, Thailand and Morocco. And you’re gong to hear how you can partner with them.

This calling of Jesus to be sent into the world was not a calling to one person, but to the community of disciples who would become the church. And it’s not just one local church, but all Christians, all followers of Jesus everywhere.

For the past several hundred years Christians have grouped themselves into denominations and partnered together for ministry and mission throughout the world. As we live into a post-denominational era, Christians look for multiple partnerships and networks through and beyond denominational structures. We realize that we can do more with other Christians, other churches, other organizations than we can do alone. And so we look for people and projects where we can partner with others in ministry.

Some of those projects we can participate in ourselves. They are nearby or we can travel. There is also work that needs to be done around the world, places we cannot go. Or if we can go we cannot stay.

God has called people to those places. We are given the opportunity to support them with our prayers and our resources.

As a congregation we have multiples partners in ministry. The one partner we with whom we invest most of our missions money is the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, or CBF. This Spring we will be hearing stories from CBF field personnel and the ways in which they are embracing the world. Through the Embrace the World Offering, you and I can partner with them in the work they are doing.

But more than just giving toward the offering, I want you to pray that God will open your eyes to the ways in which you personally can embrace the world right where you live.

You can embrace the children among us by giving yourself for a day or a week at our Children’s Camp the first week of June.

You can embrace our community one Saturday morning a month as we go out as the hands and feet of Christ to embody God’s love. Two upcoming dates are April 19 and May 17. I invite you to Embrace the World with us.

I want to ask Steven Cole to go ahead and open up this video screen. I want you to hear the story of Nomie Derani and her ministry with the Arab American Friendship House in Brooklyn, New York. You can also read more about her on the insert provided in your bulletin. (VIDEO)

March 23, 2008 - "The Risen Gardener"

2008-03-30T05:46:00.000-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Easter Day
March 23, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

THE RISEN GARDENER
Jeremiah 31:1-6; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; Colossians 3:1-4; John 20:1-18

It’s the story that never gets old. In fact, it has a way of breathing new life into the world every time it’s heard. Are you ready to hear it again?

It happened early in the morning on the first day of the week, while it was still dark. The darkness of grief hung over the whole earth. The Hope of the World, Jesus of Nazareth, had been killed two days earlier.

One of his closest friends, Mary Magdalene, came to the tomb to anoint his body. To her absolute horror, the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. She ran to tell Peter and another disciple, likely John, that Jesus’ body was missing, stolen she believed.

Peter and the other disciple race each other to the tomb. The other disciple wins, the story says, making us think the other disciple is John, the writer of the gospel story. They say it is always the winners who get to write history.

Well Peter is not far behind. They enter the tomb and see that the body is indeed missing. Only linen cloths neatly folded are lying there. And the text says that when the other disciple saw he believed. And then both disciples went back home.

But Mary stands outside the tomb weeping. When she looks inside she sees two angels sitting there, and they ask her why she is weeping. “Because they have taken away my Lord,” she moans, “and I do not know where they have laid him.”

Then she turns away from the tomb and sees a man standing there, not recognizing him to be Jesus, and he too asks her why she is weeping.

Mary says to him, “Mister, if you’ve taken him, please tell me where you’ve put him so I can care for him.”

But that’s not all we are told. The story offers a seemingly insignificant detail. It says that Mary “supposing him to be the gardener.”

Until recently I have always read that to mean that Mary was mistaken. However, thanks to writer Sam Wells, [1] I am now convinced that Mary was right: The One standing before her is the Gardner. It is Jesus The Risen Gardener.

Think about it. This is the first day of the week, and this is a man and a woman in a garden. There could hardly be three more explicit references to the creation story in the Garden of Eden. Standing in this Easter Garden is a new Adam and Eve.

Let’s take a trip back to Eden just a moment.

It is in the garden of Eden that the Bible sets the first man and woman. From the paradise of the garden of Eden we find who we were created to be. God made Adam and placed him in the garden of Eden, the first gardener, at peace with his Maker.

Created in God’s good image to share communion with God and one another and to care for God’s good creation, Adam and Eve (or insert your name and mine) chose their own path rather than God’s path.

A brokenness tears into the harmony as Adam and Eve choose to live outside the boundaries God had set for their own good. They are no longer at peace with their Maker. And they are driven out of the garden.

This is often referred to as the “fall” of humanity - the fall from innocence into sin and guilt. We began our journey to Easter on the First Sunday in Lent reading this very story.

The late Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder has said that our “fallenness” or “lostness” and our salvation have to do with something far greater and far deeper than our sins and their forgiveness. It has to do with our separation from God and our incapacity to do the good. [2]

Apart from God, left to our own desires of pride and greed and lust, we make choices that exceed our limits, that run outside the boundaries God has for us, and we find ourselves lost in the world, trying to survive in a damaged creation we pray is not beyond repair, wondering if we will ever see Eden again, wondering if we as a human race will ever have the courage to do what is right for all the world.

In the novel The Kite Runner, Amir, the main character, receives a call from a long-time friend in Pakistan. Behind the words of his friend, Amir says he hears “my past of unatoned sins.” His friend ends with words Amir cannot get out of his head: “There is a way to be good again.” [3]

This is what we all want, is it not? A way to be good again? Not “good” as defined by others or as a kind of perfection we cannot reach, but the “good” God pronounced us to be at creation. The kind of goodness where we are in harmony with our Creator living in the flow of our Creator’s wishes and will.

Is there a way to be good again?

The further we go in the biblical story, it doesn’t look much better.

There is yet a third Garden in the story that precedes the Easter Garden; it is the Garden of Gethsemane, where humanity fell again as the disciples scattered and hid, just as the man and woman had fallen in Eden, then ran and hid at the sound of God’s voice.

But now here we are three days later, in the Easter Garden where we find there is a way to be good again. A way to be restored, redeemed, transformed. A way to reconnect and be reconciled with the One Who Made Us.

Mary thought Jesus was the gardener. And indeed He is. Jesus came and lived in harmony with his Maker, came not to do his will but the will of God, and open to us once again the gates to Eden.

To use John’s language, Jesus is the Word who was with God in the beginning when God made the garden - the whole of creation, epitomized by Eden. [4]

The Easter Story is quite simply a new creation story. It is as grand as that.

In Romans this Lenten season Paul has been talking about how in Adam, in our fallenness, we are all dying, but in Christ we are all being made alive.

They used to say that when they were driving the cross into the ground for the execution of Jesus they struck a skull; and it was the skull of Adam.

The incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus puts right the fatal error of the fall and gives birth to the new creation.

In a garden the world was lost; and in a garden the world was made new.

In the garden of Eden there was despair - the people cast out, the gates slammed shut.

In the garden of Resurrection there is life and hope. The tomb has burst open. The Easter garden is putting right all that our desires have messed up. In the Easter Garden we learn that the worst that can be done is not all that can be done. Behind and beyond the darkness there is the ever-creating Voice: “Let there be light! Let there be light!”

In the northern hemisphere in which we live, we are fortunate that the Easter garden is a Spring garden. Even though there is a chance of snow tonight, it is the third day of Spring. We normally associate Spring with gardens coming back to life and creation full of living creatures like butterflies. The butterfly is an old Resurrection symbol; new life emerging from the apparent death of the chrysalis. They are all around us in the sanctuary today. A reminder that at the very time when nature’s garden shows the signs of new life God brings life out of death at Easter.

The Easter story taken in all of its fullness means that redemption is not just for individual persons, but for creation itself. The whole cosmos redeemed.

Eastern Orthodox theology uses the language of the “shattered image” to describe the fallenness of creation and of humanity. And that in Jesus Christ God is mending what has been shattered.

If what Christ does in his incarnation, death and resurrection is to restore the divine image in which we were made, then the shattered image of creation is also being restored: A healed imago dei for all creation!

The great fourth century theologian Athanasius puts it this way. He says the divine image within each of us is like a great painting that has been destroyed by the elements; however, the artist doesn’t throw the canvas away, but begins to repaint it to its original glory. [5]

That is the work the Original Artist wants to do in you and me and in all creation: repaint us to our original glory. Matthew Fox reminds us that we were not created in original sin but original blessing. The One who waits for us in the Easter Garden seeks to restore us to shine with the original glory of original blessing. God’s paint brush is already busy at work.

Easter has come early this year. Earlier than most of us have ever seen. Earlier than all of us will ever see it again. I think it fitting for Easter to come just three days into the season of Spring. It would help if it felt more like Spring and less like the middle of Winter. This Easter, Spring is not in full bloom. Spring is just in its infancy. Give it some time and new life will begin to sprout up everywhere.

So it is with Easter. The resurrection of Jesus was the beginning of a new creation. This new creation was not a new creation fully come, but one which has dawned. The resurrection of Jesus is the starting point of a new creation, a the new world. The resurrection inaugurates a new creation right in the middle of the old one. And so we are born into this new creation by faith. Because there’s still enough of the old creation around for us to believe that’s all there is.

At the end of the biblical story we find yet another Garden in the City of God. It is the vision of a new heaven and a new earth come down from above. It will be the final fulfillment of the promise of Genesis 1.

In the City of God the Tree of Life is planted on each side of the river. The leaves of the Tree are for the healing of the nations. In that Garden nothing will ever again be cursed. The Throne of God and of the Lamb is at the center. There is no night in that city. Nor is there sunlight. The shining face of God is all the light the Garden needs to flourish and grow. Because then God will be all in all.

It is the final accomplishment of God’s great design, to defeat and abolish death forever. It is the rescue of creation from its present plight of decay. [6]

Our task in the present is to live as resurrection people in between Easter and the final day as a sign of Easter and a foretaste of creation’s full redemption. [7]

Easter faith gives us eyes to see the dawn of God’s new creation in the midst of the old. It gives us courage to live by the new creation rather than by the old one:

To live by forgiveness rather than guilt and vengeance.
To work for justice in the midst of the powers and systems of injustice.
To live in the community of the new creation because the divisions and hatreds and bigotries of the old creation no longer count.

Easter faith lets us trust in the God of Easter who says, “Behold, I am making all things new. In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

And while the new creation has not yet fully come we can taste the goodness of its morning light. We can taste it in every experience of joy. We can taste it in every experience of love. We can taste it in every experience of forgiveness, healing and hope.

“The power of Jesus’ resurrection is the power of creation - new creation. The power of death is broken. When Mary turns at the calling of her name, she turns from darkness to light, from despair to hope, from death to life. Not only is the future open; the past is transformed. The possibility of forgiveness means that one can begin to reclaim that past as a friend rather than as an enemy. Life does not need to be lived running away from regrets or running away from death. The power of resurrection is a power beyond description. It is not subdued by death. It has the force of a new creation, a significance as great as God’s original purpose for the world. It is no longer frightened of the past, because the power of forgiveness makes even terrible mistakes redeemable and opens gateways to new possibilities.” [8]

Mary knew who it was when the Gardener called her name.

There is a Gardener who waits for us in Easter’s Garden this very morning calling out our name.

It is our task to listen and follow the voice of the Gardener on the way to goodness and life.

Christ is risen. He is alive. God has begun to put things back to where they were meant to be all along. God wants to put you back to where you were created to be.

The Risen Gardener stands before you now calling your name. Will you look up long enough for him to wipe away your tears of grief and guilt and despair and then walk with him through the Garden of Grace and New Life? He’s calling your name. Do you hear it?

_________________________

1. Samuel Wells, Power and Passion, Zondervan, 2007, 178
2. John Howard Yoder, Preface to Theology, Brazos Press, 2002, 300
3. Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner, Roverhead Books, 2003, 2
4. Wells, 178
5. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003, 41
6. N. T. Wright, Surprised By Hope, HarperOne, 2008, 104-105
7. Ibid., 30
8. Wells, 180, 183

Jan 20, 2008 - "Getting Out of a Pit"

2008-03-26T22:14:00.001-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Epiphany 2
January 20, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

GETTING OUT OF A PIT
Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42

Anybody here today sitting in the desolate pit and miry bog of despair? The state of our world or the dark night of your soul is keeping all light from coming in. The wounds of your life - guilt, betrayal, failure, defeat - so encompass your heart you find yourself paralyzed by fear and sadness, silence and weakness. Your knees buckle beneath you. It’s hard to put one foot in front of the other because your feet are mired in the clay of your broken humanity.

Ruth Haley Barton says that the experience of “desolation is the loss of a sense of God’s presence [in our lives]. We feel out of touch with God, with others and with our most authentic self. It is the experience of being off-center, full of turmoil, confusion and maybe even rebellion.” [1]

If that is where you find yourself today, I have a song and a prayer for you. If that is not where you find yourself today, listen anyway. Because chances are there will come a time when darkness and paralysis will be the condition of your soul. And you, too, will need a song.

The song and prayer are found in the worship book of ancient Israel known as the Psalter or Book of Psalms. A collection of hymns and prayers for every condition of the soul and every possible circumstance of human living. From high praise to low blues and everywhere in between. Because somewhere in between is where real hope lies.

Today’s song sings the blues and offers praise. The strange joining of lament and thanksgiving. Interestingly, most psalms have a little of both. And together a song and prayer of hope can be raised.

Psalm 40 is the testimony of one who says there is hope in God. She has waited patiently, hoped intensely for God and has been heard by God and lifted up out of despair. It is often not within our strength to get ourselves out of a desolate pit. The heart is just too heavy to lift us and the feet are just too weak to carry us. This song is a testimony of what God can do.

The psalmist sings of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. He prays that God will not withhold the mercy needed. He’s searching for a safe and secure place to rest his weary bones in God’s faithful love.

Though the desolate pit is where he lies at the moment, he knows God is faithful and will hear him and lift him up out of the mire, and set his feet upon a solid rock, making his steps firm in God’s instruction, and putting a new song in his mouth.

But right now he is unable to sing. If he tries the only sound will be his tears. Only the deep whispers of his heart, sighs too deep for words - that’s all he can muster at the moment. And God understands. One day though, one day, he knows he will sing again. Because God is faithful and will lift him up.

Such rising from desolate pits and miry bogs often requires patient waiting.

It’s how the ancient song begins - with the pregnant pause of patient waiting.

“I waited patiently.” Which means, “I waited and waited and waited and waited. I cried out to God from the depths of heart to come and lift me up out of my desolation and despair.”

And in the mysterious ways of God and the human spirit, patient waiting was required.

What does it mean to wait?

Rarely is biblical waiting a passive activity. Sometimes it is done alone in silence, but not always.

One of the least favorite places in a hospital is the waiting room. If someone we love is having surgery, the waiting we do there is rarely passive. Our heart descends into our stomach. We pray intensely for our loved one’s well-being.

Waiting is often active. It is an act of faith, hoping intensely in God with every fiber of our being. And we have the strength to wait better when others are with us.

I wonder if such an active waiting was not part of Jesus’ invitation to Andrew?

In our gospel lesson, two invitations are offered.

The first invitation is to search our hearts.

Looking over his shoulder and seeing John’s disciples following him, Jesus turns and asks, “What are you looking for?” This is a question we manage well most of the time: “Oh, I’m looking for my keys or my cell phone. I’m looking for something to wear.”

However, when Jesus asks the question it disarms us and makes us feel uncomfortable. What can we answer? “I’m looking for whatever it takes to get me through the day. I’m looking for meaning in my work. I’m looking for love and happiness and home. I’m looking for justice and peace in the world” (though nothing would startle us more than actually finding them!) Jesus’ question reminds us how little we reflect on our searchings.

In the time of patient and hopeful waiting we search our hearts and see if we can discover why we are in despair. How did we fall so far? Who turned the lights out? Did we take a wrong turn? Sometimes there are no answers. But sometimes we can find clues.

Sometimes our desolation is the pit of lost wandering. We don’t know what we’re looking for. We have no sense of direction. And we find ourselves despairing of purpose and meaning.

At the very beginning of this story, John the Baptist introduces Jesus to his disciples as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

It is enough to peak their curiosity.

And it is a fine introduction to Jesus. For he came to embody God’s forgiving grace. And if you search your desolate heart and find that you are buried in the pit of sin and guilt, then in Jesus you have found what you are looking for: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Patient, hopeful waiting calls for us to search our hearts for what we are really looking for.

Jesus offers a second invitation.

First Jesus asks “What are you looking for?
Then Andrew asks, “Where are you staying?
And Jesus says, “Come and see.”

Pastor Lillian Daniels says about this conversation: “Jesus has gone from being the Lamb of God to a guy having some other guys over at his place.” [2] I’m sure it’s to watch the NFL Conference Championship games.

Or is this something more?

On one level, the disciples truly want to know where Jesus is staying. But with the language John uses here he wants us to know they are really asking, “Jesus, where are you abiding?”

Abiding. A good Johannine word. It travels all through the gospel. We are told early in chapter one that Jesus abides close to the heart of God. That is his deepest residence. Jesus wants us to know it can be our ours too.

“What are you looking for?” Jesus asks.
“Where are you abiding?” The disciples want to know.
And Jesus responds with an invitation: “Come and see.”

“Come and see” invites us to a place we have never been. It is an invitation to spend time with Jesus as you search for your heart’s deepest longing, your life’s truest abiding place.

Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus urges his disciples to “abide in me as I abide in you.” Jesus offers himself to John’s disciples as the place for them to abide.

Part of what it means for us to wait is to spend time in the waiting room where Jesus abides, resting in his presence, prayerfully searching, allowing God to strengthen us and raise us up out of our pit, making our steps secure.

Waiting, searching, abiding is holy, necessary work. And in the waiting, searching, abiding, God comes to us with a new song and new life.

And then we sing and we testify to others of what God has done for us.

The psalmist tells the glad news of deliverance with unrestrained lips to the congregation. He has shared of God’s faithfulness, salvation and love.

When Andrew found in Jesus the one his heart had longed for, the first thing he did was to go and tell his brother Simon Peter, “Simon, we have found the Messiah.

What about you? What story of deliverance do you have to tell?

When has God lifted you up out of a desolate pit and miry bog?

When has God set your feet upon a rock and made your once frail steps now secure?

When has God put a new song in your mouth?

Tell some one about it. Because you can be sure that there are those even now in a pit of desolation and despair, waiting to be lifted up, wanting to know if there is reason for hope. The testimony of your life can lead others to place their trust in God.

Part of your testimony and song is to tell of God’s deliverance.

Another part of your testimony and song is to live a life of faithfulness, taking delight in God’s will.

Sometimes it may be our inability to discern God’s will, our confusion that has us mired down. However, if we will search our hearts and abide in Jesus and wait patiently in hope for God, a word will come and guide our steps.

The testimony of our lives is to live in trust and dependence upon God, listening for God’s instruction, walking with feet willing to do God’s will.

The psalmist reminds us that there will be other gods tempting us to go astray, leading our feet into ungodly places. God wants those who delight to do God’s will, those whose obedience is not just external, but springs from a heart upon which God’s law is engraved. The proper sacrifice is the offering of the obedient self.

Tomorrow we honor the life, work and memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One who knew a great deal about desolate pits and miry bogs. On the night before he died, with threats breathing down his neck, King offered these now famous words of hope. He said,

I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And 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.

Another prophet of another day, a prophet named Isaiah, says that to do God’s will is to live like King, as a servant of God, giving one’s life as a light in a world where it sometimes seems the light has gone out. Snuffed out by hatred and bigotry, self-seeking greed and pride.

We are called to walk in the light of God’s will, living lives of love and compassion, serving the world around us, singing our song of testimony as witnesses to God’s saving help.

That is the song from the ancient hymnbook of Israel.

There’s another song in a less-than-ancient hymnbook that mirrors the one from the psalmist. It goes like this:

In loving-kindness Jesus came
My soul in mercy to reclaim
And from the depths of sin and shame
Through grace he lifted me.

From sinking sand he lifted me
With tender hand he lifted me
From shades of night to plains of light
O praise his name, he lifted me.

When you find yourself in despair: Wait patiently. Search deeply. Come and abide in the heart of God. And God will hear you and lift you out of despair. God will draw you up out of the desolate pit and miry bog and set your feet upon a rock and make your steps secure. God will put a new song in your mouth. A song of testimony and praise to the God who is faithful. And in the brightness of God’s new day we will live as God’s servant, as a light in a desolate world.

_______________

1. Ruth Haley Barton, Invitation to Solitude and Silence, Intervarsity, 2004, 123
2. Lillian Daniels, “Grand introductions,” The Christian Century, January 2-9, 2002, 19

Jan 27, 2008 - "Becoming One"

2008-03-26T22:13:00.001-07:00

Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Epiphany 3
January 27, 2008
W. Gregory Pope

BECOMING ONE
Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1,4-9; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23

A man was walking along San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge when he saw a woman about to jump. He called out to her, “Please, don’t jump!”
She said, “Nobody loves me.”
He said, “God loves you.”
She said, “I do believe in God.”
He said, “Are you a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim?
“I’m a Christian,” she replied.
“Me too,” he said. “Small world. Protestant or Catholic?”
“Protestant.”
“Me too! What denomination?”
“Baptist.”
“Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?
“Northern Baptist.”
“Me too. Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
“Northern Conservative Baptist.”
“Well that’s amazing. Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist?”
“Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.”
“Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Eastern Region?”
“Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region.”
“It’s a miracle! Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region of 1879 or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region of 1912?
She said, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region of 1912.”
The man gasped and shouted, “Die, heretic!” and pushed her over the rail.

We laugh because as Baptists we can identify. Our arguments over being a Moderate Baptist Faith and Message of 1963 Christian or a Fundamentalist Baptist Faith and Message of 2000 Christian have been known to get rather heated. We haven’t pushed anyone over the rail that we know of, but we have slandered character and destroyed careers.

There’s a hopeful event taking place in Atlanta week called the New Baptist Covenant. Several from our congregation are planning to make the pilgrimage. It is an attempt to gather together Baptists of all different stripes in order to present a united Baptist public voice for justice and religious liberty and compassion for the poor. Hopefully no one will get pushed from the top of the Georgia Dome. We will be in prayer for them as they gather.

The Call to End Division and Unite

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Christians he issues a call for an end to quarrels and divisions. He challenges them to unite for the sake of the gospel. It seems the Corinthians were choosing sides and labels by which to identify themselves and in the process losing their sense of purpose.

To unite people is always difficult work, whether it be denominations, congregations, co-workers, or people in any relationship.

I heard of one man who was having difficulty making this unity thing work in his marriage. He came in for marriage counseling about six months after the wedding and said, “Preacher, I know that we pledged back then to be one, but I didn’t know that she’d be the one.”

There are those in marriages, relationships, work settings, and congregations who want to be the one.

In a diverse congregation such as ourselves where you are unwilling to listen to the dictates of your pastor, unity can sometimes be a struggle. With differing opinions on missions, evangelism, worship, scripture, homosexuality, politics, and sanctuary temperature, it is easy to choose sides and create division.

Follow Jesus

That is why it is so important that we keep our focus on the uniting call to follow Jesus.

In our gospel lesson for today, walking by the sea of Galilee, Jesus saw Simon Peter and Andrew fishing. We read the story last week of their meeting Jesus, and his invitation to “come and see,” to spend some time with him and search their hearts and see what they thought of him. How much time has passed since the two encounters, we do not know.

Now he extends a different kind of call. It is a call to repent, to change their lives, and to follow him. Jesus says he will now make these fisherman fish for people. And they drop their nets and follow.

Then Jesus found two more brothers, James and John. They were mending their nets in a boat with their father. Jesus calls out to them. And they leave the boat and their father, and follow Jesus.

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

Well, it doesn’t focus on a belief system. As much as I enjoy theological conversation, Jesus wasn’t big on systematic theology. He didn’t provide a master plan of evangelism. He didn’t give us a theory of biblical inspiration. He didn’t tell us how to read scripture. He didn’t say a word about homosexuality. He just said, “Follow me.”

And our decision to say yes to that call is what unites us. We are united in the waters of baptism as the one Body of Christ when we utter the confession, “Jesus is Lord.” We are all trying together to follow Jesus.

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

Repentance

It begins with repentance. In his first words of public ministry Jesus said, “Repent, change your life, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”

What is it about our lives that needs to change as we seek to walk in the way of Jesus? Well, let’s look at what Jesus did.

The Ministry of Teaching / Preaching / Healing

Matthew tells us that when Andrew and Peter, James and John left their fishing nets, they went with Jesus throughout Galilee, listening as Jesus taught in the synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom.

At the end of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus summoned the disciples to go into all the world and teach all that he had taught them. And what did he teach?

At the heart of his teaching was something he called the kingdom of God, a way of ordering our lives so that God’s dream for the world becomes reality.

It is the dream of a world where there is justice for the poor, freedom for the oppressed, and forgiveness for the sinner.

Jesus would be an advocate for justice and the poor. He would offer freedom to those long held captive and oppressed by legalistic religion. He would join the prophets before him in calling for justice and an end to oppressive governments and economic systems that kept people poor.

Jesus is the embodiment of the prophet Isaiah’s message. He is our saving light of joy shining in the dark gloom of anguish.

Jesus befriended those in the dark anguish of loneliness, people who thought they had no friend, and found themselves to be God’s friends. He broke down barriers that separated people from one another. Forgiveness flowed from him, from God through him, like cleansing waters, the deep healing of our souls.

Jesus brought healing to the dis-eased. He embraced lepers, healing them with his touch. He spoke love, healing us with his words. He called the lowly and the fallen to follow him and find hope and purpose. Jesus brought healing to the diseased and the sick. And he calls us to do the same.

Seeking the Face of God

Such a life of teaching, preaching, and healing calls for a change in us. It is a life shaped for the well-being of others and the transformation of the world.

To follow Jesus calls for repentance, a turning of the face to seek God’s face. This morning’s psalmist sings of seeking God’s face. “Come, my heart says, seek God’s face! Your face, Lord, do I seek. O God, do not hide your face from me. For You are my salvation.”

To follow Jesus, to live according to God’s ways, is not about seeking our own path and saving our own face. The psalmist says it’s about seeking the face of God, consciously dwelling in God’s presence all our days, beholding the beauty of the Lord, inquiring and learning God’s ways. Paul says it’s about the cross, the way of self-giving sacrifice which will appear as utter foolishness to the world, but it is God’s way of saving the world. So take up a cross and follow.

Conclusion

That is why we are here. This is what unites us. Together seeking the face of God, beholding the beauty of God’s justice and freedom, healing and forgiveness, learning God’s ways and sharing what we’ve learned as we walk together in the way of Jesus.

We follow Paul’s counsel to agree on these basic things and put an end to petty quarrels and divisions over lesser things. To stop taking sides and be united in one mind and purpose. For Christ is not divided. But the world wouldn’t know it by looking at the church today.

Sometimes I’ve thought we ought to join every Christian organization and denomination that would have us. At least we would be doing all we could to connect with as many Christians as possible.

There is a man in Wisconsin trying to do his part to unite the Body of Christ. One dark night he went around his town and painted over all the different church names. When they arrested him, he said, “God told me to do it!” The jury didn’t buy it, but who knows?

The Lord is our light, says the psalmist, lighting our path as we live through our differences and all that we cannot fully understand. Which is a lot. The Lord is our light and our salvation, saving us from ourselves and the enemies that seek to divide us.

To borrow a line from another psalmist God prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies and invites us to become friends with our enemies and eat together at God’s table.

A Baptist minister spent a couple of days at a Catholic Retreat Center. When he checked in he told one of the ministers that he’d like to come to Mass and understood that he shouldn’t take communion. She said, “No, please share communion with us.” Surprised, he said, “Thank you, I didn’t realize that was okay.” She smiled and said, “Well, after all, no one will know who you are.”

The truly good news of grace is that no matter who we are, God welcomes us to the table. At this meal God is here to deliver us from the enemies of unity like narrow vision and prejudiced hearts, so that we won’t exclude anyone whom God welcomes. This table unites us. It helps make the world look like the kingdom of God.

And besides, at this table, God knows who you are, and God calls you by name, and says, “Come and dine. You are welcome here.”