Confirmation Sunday - Knowing Your Faith History, Confirming Your Faith History, Living Your Faith History

When we listen to the news, one word comes up over and over.   There are many things that make us uneasy, even afraid:  SECURITY! 

World Political Security   

This week we held our breath afraid that North Korea would so something to threaten world security.  We have been praying for months that Syria would find a way to a new beginning.  Iran also continues to threaten a new beginning of nuclear war.   Internet threats also pose a danger to all of us. 

Often the pounding at Ft. Riley rattles our house and tells me that we have much left to do to bring the world to where God wants.

Global Financial Security

Financial stability continues to be keep worries on the table as some banks and big companies have problems and even nations worry about debt collapsing their countries structure.

National Security

So we spend billions on defense and security.  What is about human beings that we have to lock everything and spend so much of our abundance on defense when the whole world could be about ending hunger, poverty, oppression, and war. 

Personal Security

Americans frequently put security systems in their homes.  Our own nation is a giant debate over whether guns provide security or make things more dangerous. More in news all the time are the possible theft of our personal identity.  One member of our church has been targeted with identity theft and I hope they find the man using his name.

In the midst of fear people do some strange things, even corporations.  The slides shown during the reading of the scripture were from The Brick Bible, a new book by Brendan Powell Smith.  His book pictures the Bible scenes with Legos.  He wanted to present the Bible in a new way in tune with the world.  That is what Jesus did:  he told stories about seeds and flowers and birds and a camel going through the eye of a needle.  That is what John Wesley did.  When people were not coming to the churches, he took the gospel out to the people.  He preached in the open spaces.  Our denomination began that way.  We need to continue that for us to live our faith.

Wal-Mart was very interested in stocking them until they learned that parts of the Bible were left in, even the parts about violence and sexuality.  So Smith took out a bunch of the images out and Wal-Mart still won’t stock it.  There is nothing in the book that was not in the Bible. 

Fear was what drove the death of Jesus on the cross.  Rome feared that Jesus would cause a rebellion.  And now the disciples were afraid that what happened to Jesus would happen to them and they were not yet ready for that.  Being crucified as a political and religious threat was not something they signed up for being disciples. They were also afraid at what Jesus would say.  They had disappointed Jesus and themselves.  When Jesus needed them most they deserted him.  One of the miracles of Easter is that he did not blame or shame them.  Jesus did not blame Thomas for doubting.  He came back to clarify the truth.  Doubting is how we determine things are true or not. 

Thomas shows us that doubting can be a path to bold faith.  We don’t often remember but Thomas is also the man who said:  Then let us go so that we may die with him!”  His confession of Jesus as My Lord and My God is one of the strongest of the whole New Testament. 

Retracing this journey of Thomas encourages regular attendance and involvement.  If you are not in attendance you might miss something.  Regular attendance at worship and Sunday school for all ages, gives you a front row seat to what God is doing through us.  Often a small group is the place where you experience the presence of Christ.  Regular attendance gives you a family of support.  Regular attendance helps you discover the possibilities of human friendship so valued by God.  Regular attendance puts you in places where your gifts and your talents can make a difference in other’s lives.

The disciples had up their best defenses and Jesus came right through.  Locked doors, closed minds, and hard hearts are not something that will block God’s work.  Intense worry, fear, and guilt don’t keep God out…that is when God can enter in.  There is no set of human security measures that are stronger or better than Christ’s presence bringing peace, gratitude, and renewal.

And now here is one more thing that is amazing about Easter.  “He gave the earliest disciples an assignment.  “As the Father sent me, so I send you.”  We are all sent to show the world how hospitality works, how community works, and how compassion changes the world.    We are to leave our locked rooms and leave behind our fears.  We are to do all the good we can.  Living and telling the Easter story changes the world.   The assignment is to make become disciples and then make disciples for the transformation of the world.

Easter Sunday - John 20:1-18

The awaking of Easter was crazy.  There was grief and despair.  There was shock and disbelief.  As Jesus had predicted at the Last Supper, he was gone, in the grave.  Most of the disciples were terrified and hiding. Mary Magdalene, risking her life and safety is at his grave alone.  Mary stays expressing her love and gratitude for Jesus.  She assumes the body has been stolen or taken elsewhere.  She tells John and Peter and they run to see and sure enough it was empty.  They have little clue about what it all means?  One believes and one does not.  What John believed then we do not know.  They see nothing so they sigh and go back home. And someone she thinks is the gardener speaks her name and she knows this is Jesus.  And she says in startled recognition, “My Lord.”  Her life is changed.

As Jesus calls our names, we receive comfort and a challenge.  The comfort is that Jesus who died is alive.   His death was not forever.  Like Mary we are comforted.  God through Christ conquered forever death forever.  Then, like Mary we also receive a wake-up challenge.  The challenge is that the story of Easter continues today through you and me, and our church. 

The comfort Mary received was that Jesus was there.  Her heart jumped with joy.  Her mind swirled with disbelief.  And Mary wanted to hold on to him.  We sing the hymn: “Abide with me, fast the evening falls.”   Mary wants Jesus to stay with her.  “Make it be it the way it was before.  Stay with me…stay with us…please.”  I told Jim Tubach that whenever I though I had things ready or done, something quite different comes up.  And Jim said to me: “And life goes on.”  And when he says that, he knows what he is talking about.

One part of Easter we can never change.  What actually happened in that tomb was between God and Jesus and no one was there and we will never know that.

Our experiences of the Risen Christ are when we go from grief to gratitude because God is there.  Mary could not see Jesus because of her own problems, grief, and tears.  She did not expect to see Jesus.  When we are in grief it is hard to see the possibilities because all we can feel is the pain.  When life does not go as we expect or fit into any categories we know, it takes a major shift.  We have to let go of what was and grasp what is new.  

The challenge of this story is that Jesus returns and asks us to stay with him.  The trouble is we are committed one moment and then not the next.  How can Jesus expect these people around him…or us….to be consistent in our devotion?

G.K. Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”

Last Wednesday night, our confirmation class pondered their vows as they join the church.  On behalf of the whole church I ask you, do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin? I do.

Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?  I do.

Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?  I do.

We say vows in our weddings.  The vow is not:  “I love me and I want to use you to love me even more.”  Or do you Larry, feel like you want to love Penny?”   A vow is an act of will, a decision, a commitment, a dedication, and a promise.

The earliest disciples discovered Christ who gives us special, specific, unavoidable, prophetic, spiritual content to guide our faith, hope, and love.  They became overwhelmed with comfort as Jesus called them by name.  It is like when God created the world…it is a new identity and a fresh understanding God’s new world.  It is a miracle.  If we make an opening for Christ to come in and allow that light to shine, we are playing a part in God’s transformation of the world.  It is something like what God did through Jesus resurrection.

Our story with God does not end, thank God, on the Good Friday cross.   The Last Supper was the beginning supper of a new way of doing life together.   Thank God the Risen Christ shows up and appears to the very ones who betrayed and disappointed him.  We don’t have to go looking for Jesus; Jesus looks for us and he finds us.  He forgives us and challenges us to live like him. 

The disciples might have been saying things like: “It was a great campaign while it lasted.  That Jesus School of Religion was interesting.  We did not get him elected Messiah like we hoped.  Weren’t the road trips fun!  Sometimes it was tough: all those people who need healing.  Let’s plan a reunion and relive the good old days:  a memorial meal for the veterans of the Jesus campaign.  Let’s go to some nice retreat center and find one with a place to go fishing.   Let’s find a safe place where we will not here God call our names.”  Instead they faced a world of Roman brutality with love and kindness.

The risen Christ comes back and invites us to the table, giving thanks to God, breaking bread, giving food, communion.  Then he says things like “love me and feed my lambs.  Create that new community of love.  The same living God who was at the table with the disciples is with us now the power of the Holy Spirit.  We are not orphans; he abides with us.  Love as I have loved you.  Do the same things I’ve done to you.

This week you have received a special brochure that offers one the greatest challenges this church has ever faced.  We are involved in a campaign that invites your participation.  On Friday night I had the strangest dream.  It was about this campaign.  Amy Westfahl, you were in that dream; your request to me was that I was to provide more photos.  And I was so worried and concerned, because in my dream I had to provide all of the photos with a Go-pro camera. 

If I would interpret the dream…perhaps it is God’s dream that College Avenue wake up to a new level of activity that could only be covered by a camera built to capture the wildest action.

This building project is huge.  And one thing about Easter teaches us is that it’s not up to us alone.  Communion and community are things that God does through the risen Christ.  The risen Christ pops up at almost any opportunity.

The expansion of our facilities makes it possible to live out our faith in more powerful ways. 

Signs of the resurrection:  our youth just distributed $7,500 to agencies working to transform people through love.  It is like a light shining into the darkness.  Our church is forming a committee to study how to make our church activities more available to all persons with differing abilities.

If we adore and worship Jesus, we then imitate him in the world around.

If we take cookies into the jail they suddenly get transformed into an overflowing of God’s love…even in that house that holds so much hatred and pain.

Those earliest followers of Jesus did not bow to Caesar and that caused trouble.

            They included rich and poor, Jew and Greek, women and men.

            And women were in leadership just as much as men.

             

To each the experience of Jesus coming back was very different….Mary Magdalene was the first…and then to many.  One thing I know is that when Jesus came to the disciples, they became stronger, kinder, wiser, more daring, more generous, more like Jesus.  And people I know end up that way to.   I pray that I end up that way.  And add to that I never know when and where Jesus will turn up next. 

Christianity is not as much about what you think or feel about Jesus; it is what Jesus does to you.  It not a technique for how to you use him; but it is how he uses us.

In the Last Supper and in the resurrection appearances Jesus was preparing them and us for the future.  What does the future hold for us?  Where are we headed, in this life and beyond? 

One of the desires God has put in us is of a room large enough to hold all of us at tables.  We cannot now do that.  Why is important to be together…because God is preparing us from that great table in eternity.  I want to practice being at table with all of you so that we discover together how much God loves each and everyone.  His love for us is eternal. 

In the end we will feast on high.  At that table we will no longer be separated or divided.  We will not be lonely.  We will no longer fear a cold, dark, universe where nothing matters.  We were made by God for “together.”  The purpose of all creation is communion and covenant and vows and reunions.

You don’t believe it?  Come to the table! God will call your name!

Maundy Thursday

Welcome to Maundy Thursday.  The word source is Mandatum or mandate.  Jesus gives us a commandment to:  love one other, pray and work for justice, and practice eating with Christ.

The first commandment is to love.   Thank you for loving us College Avenue folks with meals and music and fellowship.  God is love and Jesus knew that better than any.  How he taught with every word and deed.

I am convinced that God put us in families for love and support.  And families also teach us that we do not yet know all we need to know about love.  Brandy just sent me a picture of Bill Cosby and just his face makes me smile.  The quote is about his mother, now the grandmother of his children.  He says, “This woman who is your grandmother, is not the same woman who was my mother.  Now she acts like a person trying to get into heaven.”  Of course grandparents act a bit different then parents. I am anticipating being a first time grandfather and so I will act in that same way.

Meals are and have always been the very center of life, especially in families.   And many families pray: “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food.  Amen

United Methodists are prone to sing the Wesley grace….

Be present at our table Lord.  Be here and everywhere adored. These mercies bless and grant that we might feast in fellowship with Thee.  Amen

A prayer before means that we know that sharing food means much more than soothing our hunger.  It includes thanking God three times a day or more that we are fed by people we do not know.  Someone tilled the soil and cared for it all the way to harvest.  Someone harvested it and someone washed it and someone boxed it and trucked it, unpacked it and brought it into the grocery store. 

But we also know that Jesus loved gatherings like this.  Whenever we do this mean something happens…watch out.   We might remember at a meal like this that some in our land in our town have too little to eat and many have more than enough.  

Jesus is a sign that God is ready to meet us where we are every day….workday, then supper, food to be prepared, dishes to be taken home and washed and put away.

A meal is a place where our souls get fed: reunion, reconciliation, fun, teasing, conversation and life’s highlights.

Kelly Gartner is a great, very intelligent, and bold 1^st grader.  Just recently she gave her long red hair to “Locks of Love.”  Just recently she got to help serve communion.  She was so moved by the experience, the sent me a long letter telling me how the church should do that.  She have me a list of all the names of children who could do this.  Along with a code of who liked each other so I could match them up.  She told me it was unfair to only let the grown ups serve communion.

John says that Jesus’ last supper was on the eve of the celebration of the Passover, which is the Jewish celebration of independence from slavery.  Here O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  That meant our ancestors refused to bow before Caesar.    Jesus would soon die.  When all of Jerusalem would be celebrating this Holy Feast, Jesus is already in the tomb where he won’t cause trouble.  And Caesar’s gods will think they have won another battle to keep people in slavery.

The Passover means for us that Jesus was crossing over from our world to a new world.  He made the crossing in front of us, and then returning to us.  He turned passed away into passing over.   So as the Jews celebrate bondage to freedom, Jesus was going from death to life. 

And yet here is the night before and he is with his closest friends. 

How could he tell that this is for them, too?  As he lifts the cup and passes the bread he is leading to place we would not have gone without his taking us there.  In Jesus God entered the world to show us the way home. 

And then, of all things, he takes off his robe and takes a towel and washes feet.  That is what a slave would do, not our Lord and Master.

What we are asked to do is to follow Jesus, imitate him.

He is kind, let’s be kind.

Jesus is preparing us for our journeys through life and for our journey home.  The table is not end…it is a transition place…experiencing the love that will bind us together.  When we are with Jesus we worship and adore his presence, and then we know we will arise and go our way.  He nourishes us at the table in order to strengthen us to walk perilous paths in the night beyond the table.

The writers of this story looked back on this night and it was if they were sending Jesus off to another world.  But what really happened was that Jesus was sending them and us into service to the world around us.

And finally I think that Jesus washed the feet of Judas who would turn on him.  Love.  Can you imagine Jesus serving undeserving Judas knowing what he was about to do.  And….washing his feet.  That is love.

I personally don’t think we should have laws that make it illegal for Christians to offer aid, comfort, food, housing, jobs, education, or transportation to undocumented immigrants.  This is an attack on the work Christ assigned us to do.  If I will have supper with Jesus and them in heaven; I do not want to be known at that table as the one who did not want them at my table in this life.

Jesus washed Peter’s feet and Judas’ feet.  Jesus does not allow us to divide the world into the deserving and the undeserving, the documented or the undocumented.  Homeless and hungry are the only qualifications needed for our Christ business.  He commands us actively to love all those in need.

William Willimon has a definition for a Christian and for a church that apply to tonight.  Who is a Christian?   “A sinner who has been washed head to toe by Jesus.” 

What is the church?  “A lively group of betrayers who are regularly saved and nourished by Jesus.” 

And this meal gets us ready to feast in heaven.  If we are going to feast with Christ and I think we are we need to be ready.  And that means practice.  Let’s practice.

Palm/Passion Sunday - The Transformation of the Human Heart

This march and this execution teach us about Jesus and through him about God. These two events are combined because they show Jesus had a vision of a world much different from the world around him and they show the commitment Jesus had to that vision.  Jesus was able to go though these harrowing events of Holy Week because he had faith that God would use them to transform our hearts.

I believe that when Jesus peaceably entered Jerusalem he was indeed more powerful that Caesar in a chariot and all his legions of soldiers put together.  The Roman Empire is long gone and the Kingdom of God is very much alive.

While on the cross Jesus suffered, not in our place, but suffered with us remembering there is no situation so terrible that it is beyond the reach of God’s transforming love.  That includes death.  The cross continues to point people to God and will through the fulfillment of all time.

LUKE, WRITING THIS MUCH LATER, IS LOOKING BACK

Jesus came to Jerusalem along with pilgrims coming to celebrate the Passover.  They were waving palm branches.  After the resurrection, when Luke was writing this, the disciples looked back over the events and realized that this was Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem as king.  They had not understood at the time.  They remembered that the Jewish prophets had foretold that the Messiah would enter Jerusalem as a humble king, riding on a donkey, and saw it as a significant event in Jesus’ life.  They saw then what they missed before...and recorded it so we can see. 

Other kings had ridden donkeys…but a colt was different.  And one that had not been ridden…signs that Jesus was a different kind of king.

WHAT WAS JESUS THINKING

Jesus had so many choices on that day:

TO RUN AND HIDE

He has already told his disciples over and over that he knows he is to die.  He knows that the crowd that will welcome him will, like the disciples, quit cheering and turn against him.   Soon they will cry out for his crucifixion with the crowd.

TO ENTER AS A RELIGIOUS LEADER

For this procession, any high religious leader would have been dressed in the finest of robes and have plenty of people, also in robes, on all sides so that no one would have the opportunity to touch him and thereby make him ritually unclean.  Obviously Jesus rejected that one. 

TO ENTER AS A LIBERATOR KING

If you will remember that Jesus was tempted in wilderness.  He was offered the job of being king of the known kingdoms.  What an offer.  Think of the good he could have done.  This would have been the moment to ride into Jerusalem in a war chariot with two white stallions.   But what kind of king?

He had to be thinking about how people would respond.   In the middle of a holiday celebrating freedom from oppression, this would have been the time.   The crowds in Jerusalem were wondering whether Jesus was going to lead rebellion against Rome; some must have been hoping and ready to fight.  The Jews hated foreign domination so much that there were several attempts at rebellion.  In CE 66 a full-scale rebellion broke out and the Romans besieged Jerusalem for 4 years.  They eventually destroyed the city and devastated the Temple. 

Jesus knew that if the people rose up in rebellion, it would get a lot of people killed and would accomplish little.  Rome was so powerful and little would change.  Jesus knew that the way to change the world was to change hearts, like yours and mine.  And that he has.

The way he chose was to be a different kind of king…a servant king who would challenge and confront all of the evil of his day with the power of love, and not the love of power. (repeat)  A little donkey would not likely scare anyone, nor inspire anyone to go to war.  This was a clear statement that Jesus entered Jerusalem a humble king. 

When your heart is like this you do not need stallions.  God took a shepherd and turned him into King David.   A young woman became the mother of the Son of God.  Jesus took this carpenter and turned him into the greatest king ever on earth.

On April 21^st, Itzhak Perlman will come to McCain in their performance series.  This man is incredible.  Years ago this amazing Israeli-American violinist was performing live at the Lincoln Center.  It is a major struggle for him to get out on the stage.  He contracted polio as a child and so it takes a while for him to enter and get seated.  It puts down his crutches and picks up his instrument.  At this concert, he had hardly begun when one of his violin strings broke.  The microphone on his instrument made it sound like a weapon had gone off.   Everyone gasped.  He was going to have to do something different.  Would he have to get up and go get a string or different instrument?  Could someone fix it for him?  What he did was take off his coat and re-tune the remaining three strings.  Everyone knows you cannot play with three strings.  Yet, he did.  He signaled the conductor to start and they did and he played with such passion and power and purity that everyone was astounded.  At the end of the concert there was silence then a roar as everyone cheered.  His statement was in humility:  “You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to see how much music you can still make with what you have left.” 

With Jesus God took what was left after the world fell apart for Jesus and gave us the greatest gift ever.

WE NEED KINGS WHO ARE FIRST OF ALL SHEPHERDS

I had a chance this week to talk to Rev. Loren Wertz.  I can always count on him to come up with some interesting quip.  I asked him for his early assessment of the new Pope.  He smiled from ear to ear and said, “We have a shepherd and not a king.  That is just what we need.  This world has too many kings and not enough shepherds.”  I added my, “AMEN!”

JERUSALEM

I pray for peace in the Middle East often.  This one city is claimed by Jews, Christians, and Muslims.  The word Jerusalem means the Foundation of Peace.   Jerusalem had been destroyed in war 17 times and yet is still there.  Our own church building has been almost destroyed twice, once by fire and a second by a tornado. 

If we could learn to live side by side, in mutual respect, then the world would have an amazing model of what life could be.  Our President has been in Jerusalem, hoping his words will encourage Jews and Palestinians to go back to the negotiating table.

Here are two scenes from a movie called Blood Diamond.  It is a very violent movie and I do not recommend it.  It pictures how people have done terrible things get things…drugs or diamonds or oil.  The first scene is one where smuggler asks the question if God would ever forgive us for what we have done?  They are struggling to get a diamond.  The fisherman wants to re-unite his family.  In an act of self-sacrifice at the end the smuggler helps the man and his family.

SHOW THE FIRST SCENE

The second scene involves a man who was forced to mine for diamonds and his son who was forced to do awful things.  In this scene the son has decided to turn on his own father.  These two actors do a great job in portraying the force that will transform the human heart: the gift of love.

SHOW THE SECOND SCENE

Rev. Diana Chapel works very hard during the year in some powerful work in our prisons.  She is one of the persons who goes into the prisons and offers weekend workshops similar to the Walk to Emmaus.  The idea is that God’s redemption is for everyone and that God is powerful enough to do just that

And Luke even mentions the stones.  It is all set in place and it is going forward, this plan of God.  There is no stopping it.  If human beings do not do their parts, the earth will do God’s work.  Even the stones will shout

WHO IS THIS JESUS

There are so many different interpretations of Jesus over the centuries.  Some of them have such distortions.  Over the centuries people have twisted Jesus into a way for God to bless what they were doing, even if it was not good.  There is the white Jesus used by the early settlers of Kansas to turn Native Americans being just like white people or worse to practice genocide.  There is the colonial Jesus used to justify taking land and resources.  There a get-rich-quick Jesus.  The male-chauvinist Jesus.  On and on and on.  Luke writes the story that tells of Jesus.

Luke makes certain we know that the Glory and peace were going to be inside and then in heaven, not on earth, right then through a military battle led by Jesus. 

He does include the comments by the Pharisees.  If Jesus and his disciples cause a ruckus, then Rome will stomp out all the Jewish people.  They want to protect themselves and their positions.  If the government decided to crack down, their jobs would be among he first to go.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

 The world needs lots of changes and some of them are social, political, and they all involve spiritual change.  Luke wants us to know that even a few wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ can make a big change in the world.  We are to live a way of life that allows the Grace of God to bring our bodies in line with our redeemed Spirits. 

The church totally underestimates the power of grace, of forgiveness.

This church did not forget how powerful God is when the needs of Ogden Friendship House was needed. 

This church did not forget how powerful God is when the Crisis Center was started.

I am convinced that the human heart can be transformed by the power of God.   The Jesus knows the difference between the love of power and the power of love.  God’s anointed liberator is not the Terminator, threatening revenge for all who refuse to honor him, groveling: “I’ll be back.”  God’s liberator is the one we beat up, who promises mercy to those who strike him, whispering, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”  The suffering, serving one who bled on a cross, not the one with a commitment to make others suffer and bleed is the King of kings and the Lord of lords.  I am eager bow my knee to Jesus, the King of Glory.  How about you?