Five More Days...

I guess I tend to update no more frequently than every five days, sometimes not even that frequently. So I also guess it's time for another update.

Things here are no less crazy than they were last week. In fact I might argue they are crazier. Part of it is just the crazy busy schedule that is normal with the job. The other part is that I'm going out of town tomorrow and then again on Sunday. Tomorrow morning I wake up super early and head out of town to Columbus for Trinity Days. I'm pretty excited to visit with friends down there. So I'll be down there all of tomorrow and then part of Friday before I come back up here and get back to work again. Saturday morning the semi-truck comes with pumpkins which we unload. I'll probably spend the rest of Saturday morning/afternoon getting some devotions ready and then that evening go to the Cleveland Zoo to walk with our middle school students for suicide prevention. Then Sunday morning I do two church services in addition to doing stuff with the mid schoolers between services and probably also sitting in on a class or two. Then after second service, I leave for Biloxi.

In addition to leaving, things will continue here at Lord of Life while we're gone and since both Pastor Rob and I are going to Biloxi, we need to find people to teach confirmation while we're gone. So I've been working on that as well. Crazy busy, but good.

Anyway, that's what's going on around here. Expect pictures and some reflections from Biloxi either while I'm down there or after I come back. There will likely be pictures up on Lord of Life's website as well. http://www.loloh.org

Look for more later... hopefully less than five days from now.

Kate

Finally...

It’s taken a while, but I am finally posting my second sermon (look for it at the end of this post). I’ve had some internet issues which seemed to have resolved themselves for the time being... we’ll see if that trend continues though.

Things here are crazy but good. I’m busy, but I’m finally starting to get my hands around what’s going on here and working on stuff as I go. Next week promises to be crazier than most weeks. Monday night I have Milkshakes and Ministry (Sr. High Youth Group), Tuesday night is my first Internship Committee meeting, Wednesday I have Sacred Grounds in the morning and then Caring Hearts (the seniors) in the evening, Thursday is Trinity Days so I’ll be in Columbus for that and then Friday I’ll probably still be down there. Saturday morning a semi arrives with pumpkins and we unload that followed possibly by an Indians game in the afternoon and then the Into the Light Walk at the Cleveland Zoo with the middle schoolers. Sunday morning I leave for a week long mission trip to Biloxi. Nuts, freaking nuts! But it should be good.

So... that’s what’s going on around here. Busy but good. Definitely in full swing.

As for the sermon, I should say that this was the second week in a preaching series on prayer. The week’s focus was “hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.” Without further delay, here it is... for better or worse.

Sermon - September 17, 2006

Text: Mark 8:31-38

"It's the sense of touch. Any real city you walk, you know, you brush past people, people bump into you. In LA, nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other just so we can feel something."

These words begin a 36-hour journey through the lives of twelve strangers living in Los Angeles, California. These twelve people, all characters in the movie Crash, find their lives intersecting in unimaginable ways.

It starts with a hostile confrontation between a Chinese woman and a Latino woman, each finding fault in the other based on racial and ethnic assumptions. The Chinese woman crashed her car into the back of the Latino woman's. The Chinese woman calls the other a stupid Mexican. The Latino woman picks on the other's accent, claiming that if she could see over the steering wheel maybe she'd be able to blake, as that was how the other had repeatedly pronounced brake.

The story then continues with one poor assumption after another, all based on race. Lives crashing into one another. People crashing into one another.

It continues with two African-American men carjacking the LA District Attorney and his wife, Jean, at gunpoint, both of whom are White. That evening, in an effort to maintain their safety, the couple has their locks changed. In the midst of the craziness, Jean pulls her husband aside and tells him that she wants the locks changed again in the morning. Her reason, because the man the lock company sent is Latino, wearing a plain white t-shirt and khaki pants that sag below his waist, not to mention the tattoos. She assumes he's a gang-banger and will immediately give copies of their new keys to all his homies. Her husband thinks she's being irrational and the conversation quickly escalates into a screaming match in which the entire house knows how Jean feels, including the locksmith.

The movie continues with provocative scene after provocative scene.

When I first saw it I found it painful to go on watching at times. I also found myself wondering, "Is this what the kingdom looks like?"

I thought of the beginning of Mark when "Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.'"

The kingdom of God has come near. We pray for it to be near, to come near, every Sunday. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come…

Your kingdom come, here to this place, to where we are.

Is this what the kingdom looks like?

People crashing into one another - hurting each other? People flying planes into buildings? Babies dying when they are three days old? 24-year-olds committing suicide because they have lost hope? People unable to admit they might be wrong and then refusing to talk to one another because of an argument? Teenagers crying out to spend some time with their parents? People always assuming the worst in others and acting accordingly?

Is this what the kingdom looks like? Is the kingdom really near? Was Jesus lying?

I sometimes have to wonder.

The disciples had to wonder too. They had heard Jesus proclaim that the kingdom was near, that it was coming. Yet, he was now proclaiming that "the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again."

Is this what the kingdom looks like? That the Son of Man, that Jesus, must undergo great suffering? That he be rejected by the elders? The chief priests and the scribes? That he must be killed? Is this what the kingdom looks like? Is it really near?

Peter had to wonder.

Actually, Peter really didn't think it was possible. There was no way that the kingdom was near and that Jesus would, that Jesus could undergo great suffering and be killed. It was simply not possible. So "Peter took [Jesus] aside and began to rebuke him," to tell him what he really thought, to get this crazy idea out of Jesus' head.

"But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, 'Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.'"

In the opening scene of Crash, one of the characters turns to another and describes the crash. She says, "Graham, I think we got rear-ended, I think we spun around twice and somewhere in there, one of us lost our frame of reference."

Peter has lost his frame of reference. He is setting his mind not on divine things but on human things. Peter has spun around twice and somewhere in there, lost his frame of reference, God. He has forgotten that God is more powerful than any human thing. He's forgotten that God can work even in the midst of the worst human pain and suffering. Peter's lost his frame of reference and can't see how God is working in the suffering, the pain, and the death.

Perhaps I've lost my frame of reference. When I ask, "Is this what the kingdom looks like?" I have forgotten that God is more powerful than any human thing; that God can work even in the midst of the worst human pain and suffering. Yes, I am sure I have spun around and lost my frame of reference.

There are times in our lives when we all lose our frame of reference.

But prayer brings us back. Prayer reorients us. Prayer sets us straight after we have lost our frame of reference.

There is a quote taped to the keyboard in my office. I have no idea who put it there, but it helps remind me how to find my frame of reference.

It says, "Prayer doesn't change God, but changes the one who prays."

Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher, had it right when he said this. Prayer is not about making sure God does what we think is right. About making sure God gives us what we think we are due or what we think we need. It isn't about changing God at all.

It is about a change in us, the ones praying. It is about taking us and spinning us back around to the direction we were originally facing, about showing us our frame of reference. Prayer, having a conversation with God, brings us closer to God, closer in relationship, closer to knowing God.

Like a magnet, the closer we get to God, the easier, faster, and more able we are to reorient ourselves. The easier it is to be able to see how near the kingdom really is.

It means that instead of simply seeing the pain in the loss of a three day old baby, we are able to see the good in the love of family and friends as they surround the devastated parents. The kingdom is present in that love.

Having our frame of reference means that we see the places in our lives where we are welcome, the places where we are comfortable. We find the places where we are able to cry, to let out some of the emotion of the difficulties of life. We are able to find release from the pain in these places.

One of these places might be church: worship, Milkshakes and Ministry, Sacred Grounds, or a conversation with another person here.

Another of these places might even be prayer, the intimate conversations with God.

Prayer opens us up to see the kingdom in the midst of the chaos. Instead of only seeing the pain of planes crashing into the World Trade Center towers on 9/11, we are able to see the ways the people of this country came together. The love expressed for one another, for life. The candlelight vigils, the phone calls made to loved ones, the support we find in one another. Five years later, we see new joys, new loves, that there is life after pain.

Prayer, constant prayer, helps us to maintain direction in our lives. It might mean praying for the Aurora-Streetsboro Mission Strategy, to be able to see where we are going or supposed to be going. Maybe it means praying for direction in a conflict at work or in a relationship. Praying gives us direction; it turns us around and gives us our frame of reference again. Praying regularly at 4:24… PM…. as Pastor Rob encouraged us to do last week, helps bring us closer to God, closer to our direction. One minute of prayer is one minute closer to God.

More importantly, prayer opens us to hope. Hope for a new creation for a new kingdom that is near! Hope opens us up to share in the resurrection of Christ. Yes, the Son of Man had to undergo great suffering, be rejected and then killed. But he also rose again on the third day. He lives and we do too. Our God is a powerful God who is constantly working in the midst of the chaos, setting right, what once went wrong… even in the pain and suffering of the cross. On the final day, all the chaos, the old kingdom, will pass away and there will be no more pain, no more suffering. We will live in the new kingdom, the new creation.

The kingdom is near.

After a close call with the law and another carjacking victim, one of the original carjackers rethinks some things… but maybe not everything. He continues to steal cars and when he steals a van, he finds it full of Chinese people smuggled into the country. He chooses to let them go in the middle of Chinatown instead of selling them to another man. He gives them life, he sets them free… even giving them 40 bucks for some dinner.

Something has changed for him, something has changed inside of him. He may not have folded his hands, bowed his head, and closed his eyes, but I am sure that God was working in and through him. It might seem like one little thing in the midst of some hugely wrong things in this man's life, but this is the kingdom of God.

"Prayer doesn't change God, but changes the one who prays." God changes the one who prays. This is what the kingdom looks like - our powerful God working in the midst of the messiness of life. In the midst of the crashes, God is changing every single one of us. Changing us to be able to see the kingdom, to be a part of the kingdom, the kingdom that is near. Amen.

And So it Continues...

I am currently sitting in front of the TV watching the USC/Nebraska football game. While I have an investment in every USC game (I went to school there, so it’s natural), this one is a tad more important as my advisor at Trinity is a huge, huge Nebraska fan. Well, that and my mom’s side of the family is all from Nebraska. But really, it’s all about bragging rights for the rest of the year with my advisor. =) I probably won’t be able to stay up and watch the entire game (the bad thing of being in the Eastern Time Zone) as I am preaching again tomorrow morning. I really need to try and do the early bedtime tonight.

Things are going pretty well here. I mentioned already that I’m preaching again... wasn’t scheduled to preach until October, but wound up having a switch in the schedule because Bill, our pastoral associate, anticipated spending the week trying to get his adult ed stuff together and not having enough time/energy to preach. So here I am, preaching two out of the four Sundays I’ve been here. Not that I mind, I really do enjoy preaching. Expect that my sermon will be posted tomorrow or in the near future.

I’m pretty busy, but you know, that’s to be expected. Plus, I’d rather have it that way instead of just sitting around trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do. Lots of things going on here...

I’ll continue to try and update... but thus far I’m not doing so well.

Kate

Another Week Later

I seem to be bad at updating... crazy busy is what it’s been. But it’s been good, it really has. I know that last week I didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing - I didn’t. There are some things that I still don’t feel like I know what I’m doing... but it’s getting better. I’m sure it is just an experience thing. The more I do and the more I succeed or the more I fail and am able to pick myself up off the floor, the better it gets. The perfectionist in me just doesn’t like not knowing what I’m doing, it makes me feel like a failure. I recognize this and try and tell myself it... but there is a disconnect between my brain and my heart. But it’s getting better and things really are going pretty well.

I preached this past Sunday and since most of my friends seem to be posting their sermons on their blogs, I will do the same at the end of this entry.

In other news, I went to Cedar Point on Monday with Joel. It was a good way to get away and enjoy riding some roller coasters. I’ve always been a thrill junkie and will ride almost anything. Well, Joel and I rode all the biggest, baddest roller coasters in the park including one that launches you to 120 mph in 3.8 seconds, goes up 90 degrees to 420 feet before coming back down at 90 degrees and 120 mph again before stopping. Click here for a link to a movie of the coaster (you’ll need Quicktime to view it). It was nuts, but it was freaking awesome!!

And now for the sermon:

Sermon - September 3, 2006

Text: Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

Sometimes the biggest obstacle I face is myself. Never was this more apparent to me than last summer while I was working as a chaplain at the Ohio State University Medical Center. During the course of the summer I provided pastoral care to those who needed it. I spent time with people who were dying of cancer, people who just lost a spouse, and people who were watching the chest of their sister just to make sure she took another breath. It was not an easy job, especially at first.

Last summer started much the same way internship has started. I was thrown into the deep end of the pool and told to swim on my first day. Ok, so maybe it was the third day, but it felt like the first day. My supervisor decided that I should have the most critical unit in the hospital, the Medical Intensive Care Unit (or MICU). Somewhere along the way I had said I liked a challenge and he decided that was the best place to get it. So on the third day of my new job, Marge, the staff chaplain who normally had MICU, took me up to the floor and introduced me to a few people, mostly staff and nurses. During the introductions she got a page and had to go to another unit in the hospital. She left me up there all by myself.

I had no idea what I was doing! I was petrified. I didn't know anybody and really I didn't even think I knew how to do my job. But I really wanted to do a good job. I really wanted to get it right. But I wasn't quite sure what was right. So after walking around the unit for a little while, I took the first step and found somebody to visit.

It didn't go well, but it didn't go horribly either. I was too focused on doing the job right - even if I wasn't clear about what that meant. I couldn't listen to the husband of the patient. I was too busy paying attention to what was going on inside of me. I walked out of the room and because I was so busy paying attention to my job and doing it right, I cannot possibly tell you what he and I talked about. I was so wrapped up in myself, in finding the right thing to say, in questioning every move I made, that I missed out on what was right in front of me. I was so busy doing my job that I forgot to do my job.

The Pharisees were so busy doing their jobs that they forgot to do their jobs. God had chosen the Jews to be the light to the world. That was their job, to be God's people and then to help others be God's people too. God had given them the law - a set of guidelines to go by in order to do their job. But most of the time these rules left a lot up for interpretation and like me they didn't really know what they were doing. They were not clear about how they were to do their job. They wanted to get it right, they wanted to please God. But the more they focused on trying to do their job, the less they were able to do it.

The more the Pharisees tried to follow the law and do their jobs, the more they fell into routines. Routines were easy to keep, easy to follow. You know what is expected of you as long as you stick to the routine. The longer I was a chaplain, the more I started to develop and stick to routines - things I knew that worked. For the Jews that meant keeping everything clean. It was routine; everybody, all the elders and the Pharisees did it. They kept everything clean - it was simple, it was easy - they all knew how to do it and what was expected. The problem with routines is that we become so comfortable that we miss out on what is right in front of us. We continue to be so busy doing our jobs that we forget to do our jobs.

We often get into routines in our own lives too. We wake up to go to work at the same time every day. We respond to our spouses in the same way we always respond when they ask us how things are going. We eat the same food on Thursdays that we have always eaten or order the same meal we always order at a particular restaurant. We go with what is safe - we go with the routine.

Church can become routine too. We only talk to the people we know and don't say hi to people we don't know. We worship the same way because it is what we have always done. We sing the same hymns because they are familiar and we like them. Sometimes we aren't even open to new ministry opportunities because we've never done it before. It isn't routine. It isn't safe. It isn't comfortable. It might be that we think it is dangerous or possibly even just wrong.

Like any people in a routine, the Pharisees were afraid of looking at anything outside the routine. This is why the 'dirtiness' of the disciples was such an issue to the Pharisees. The disciples were followers of a man claiming to be the Son of God and yet were not clean people. They did not follow the rules, they didn't follow the routine. How could they be children of God without following the tradition of the elders? The Pharisees were so busy worrying about the cleanliness of others they couldn't do their job. Cleanliness was the ditch the Pharisees had fallen into and they couldn't see what was standing just outside.

Instead of being obsessed with God, they were obsessed with cleanliness and making sure everybody lived according to the rules.

Jesus notes their misplaced obsession. He tells them, "8 Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, 'This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.' 8 You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."

"You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition." They were so busy doing their job that they forgot to do their job.

More importantly, you've missed what was standing right in front of you. It isn't about the routine. It isn't about being clean or unclean. It is about loving all people - regardless of who they are. The Pharisees have abandoned the commandment of God - the biggest commandment of them all - Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. The Pharisees were so busy doing their job that they forgot to do their job. They were so consumed with doing things right, they forgot about God completely and failed to see the disciples, the people standing right in front of them.

We miss things right in front of us. I missed the husband of the patient in MICU. In fact, I missed a lot of people at that hospital. We might miss the person sitting next to us - the person who desperately needs someone to talk to. We might miss our kids who need their parents to listen to them. We might miss our boyfriends, girlfriends, or spouses. We might miss what is standing right in front of us all because we are too busy doing our jobs to do our job.

We get so wrapped up in doing what we think is right that we lose focus of what we should be doing. The Pharisees wanted to exclude the disciples because they were different, because they didn't follow the rules. We exclude people or ideas because they are different, because they don't follow the rules. But Jesus turns this upside down. It's not about doing the job right - because Jesus has already done it.

See it isn't about what is on the outside, about doing things right. It is about what is on the inside, about what is in our hearts. "14 Then [Jesus] called the crowd again and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile… 20 And he said, "It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

These are things that are within each of us. All of us have demons inside, none of us are exempt. The Pharisees' routine is a sham. Nobody is clean - all of us are dirty. No matter how hard they work to stay clean, they will always be dirty. That is without Jesus. Jesus heals us - he makes us clean. Jesus healed people everywhere he went - including the entire region of Gennesaret. Wherever he went, people came to him and were healed. He also cast out demons, including in the daughter of a Syrophoenician woman, the lowest of the low. The sickest of the sick are healed. Whatever ails you, whatever defiles you, Jesus casts out. Whatever makes you dirty, Jesus cleans away.

Jesus breaks down the walls that live within us. He casts out the demons that haunt us, the ones that drive us nuts. He casts out the demons of loneliness, hurt, anger, and pain. He breaks down the walls of isolation, pride, and contempt. He fills our hearts with perfect light that casts out the fear of failure. Everything from within, everything that we battle, Jesus casts out. He helps us battle our worst enemies, ourselves. He helps us to see God, to bring us closer to himself. We defile ourselves, but Jesus cleans us even in the worst of our grime.

Jesus frees us from the need to do our job right. Jesus frees us to see what is right in front of us - to see the people we need to see. To love unconditionally, to love others different from ourselves.

Jesus freed me to do my job as a chaplain. He freed me to be able to listen to people - to hear what their concerns, their hopes, and their fears were. I fell into a routine because I didn't think I was good enough or had enough to offer. But I found out that I had more than enough because I had Jesus and Jesus is always more than enough. I am more than enough because I am a child of God - a child that Jesus set free to live boldly in the world.

Jesus reminds each of us that we are children of God, just as he reminded the Pharisees that they too were children of God. Jesus brings our focus back to who we are and who we worship, God. Jesus frees us to be ourselves. It isn't about rules, how we worship God, or even what we look like. It is about the power to live as children of the light, children of the same God. It is about being able to be authentic, about being able to worship God with everything within us. It is about Jesus healing us and giving us the ability to do these things. It is about Jesus cleaning up the grime in our lives, the nastiness that gets in our way. It is about being clean, about being holy - all because Jesus does it for us. Amen.