So... for pretty much the past week, the weather here has been gorgeous. Definitely shorts weather. I never thought I'd be wearing shorts and not require a jacket of any kind for the last week in November... but that's been the case. However, now we're returning to the 'normal' weather. Here's the forcast for the next several days:
So, as promised, here's my combined Thanksgiving Eve sermon. I start, Anthony the intern from Holy Angels Catholic Church continues at the part marked "Anthony" and then I finish...
Sermon - Thanksgiving Eve, 2006
Text: Matthew 6:25-33
In his book, “The Lord is My Shepherd,” Rabbi Harold Kushner cites a story about a group of tourists on safari in
Thanksgiving is a time to allow our souls to catch up with us…
I’ve been the intern at Lord of Life Lutheran Church for about three months now. I’ve had my share of ups and downs during that time. But until recently I’ve very much felt like one of the tribesmen carrying supplies and walking through the desert in
I’ve been walking through the last three months weighed down by worry. Worry that I won’t do my job right. Worry that what I may have learned in seminary won’t serve me at all in the parish. Worry that people won’t like me. Worry that I may not be a good pastor.
Worry, worry, worry.
It weighed on me like a ton of bricks – and I carried it with me wherever I went. To the office, to the store, visits with shut-in members, conversations with people in the congregation. Three months – a short amount of time – unless you’re carrying the weight of a dozen worries with you everywhere you go.
I walked too far, too fast and now I need my soul to catch up.
Thanksgiving is a time to allow our souls to catch up with us…
One day for our souls to catch up with us – one day out of a whole year. The tribesmen stopped after walking for only three days. We stop after walking for three hundred sixty four days, that is unless it’s a leap year, then it’s three hundred sixty-five.
One day doesn’t seem to be near enough for our souls to completely catch up after three hundred sixty-four days of walking with heavy baggage.
We spend those days worrying about what we will eat, or what we will wear.
Three hundred sixty-four days we worry about how to pay for our house and our utilities. We worry about our jobs, if we’ll be fired or if we’ll get a promotion. We worry about sports and piano lessons for our kids. We worry about our own health or the health of our loved ones. Will mom make it through surgery? Will we have to put grandpa into a nursing home? We worry about finding people to watch our kids when we have to run to a meeting. We worry about what colleges we’ll be accepted to. We worry about who will like us – who will hate us. We worry about what we will do with the rest of our lives. If what we are doing is what God has called us to do.
Worry, worry, worry.
For three hundred sixty-four days we carry the baggage of our lives. It is an exhausting task – carrying all these worries around. It can and often does drag us down.
The crowds following Jesus spent plenty of time carrying the heavy baggage of their lives too. They spent three hundred sixty-five days worrying about what they would eat, what they would drink, what they would wear.
Worry, worry, worry.
What will they feed their kids that night? Fish? Bread? Where will it come from? Will the day’s catch have enough fish to pay all the bills? Little Phillip’s tunic was ripped in half while he was playing with the other kids – how can we afford to replace it now? Can we sew it back together for a couple more months until we get the year end bonus?
Worry, worry, worry.
I can only imagine what the people thought when Jesus told them not to worry about their lives, what they will eat or what they will drink, or about their body, what they will wear.
Don’t worry??? What do you mean?? How can I not worry at a time like this – with my life and the life of my family at stake?
Yet Jesus tells them, tells us, not to worry.
Anthony’s half of the Sermon
Do not fear, be glad and rejoice for our God is doing great things among us! Stop, look around you, and allow your soul to catch up with the business of your life. We gather this evening as a Christian Family despite our worries and anxieties precisely because our God remains ever faithful to us. We must have the courage to allow Jesus to transform our worries into true peace. The worries you and I have…the heavy baggage we carry around with us…these things are very real…but as baptized Christians these worries and baggage are no longer our own…we do not have to bear these burdens alone. Christ bears them with us!
We are called as baptized Christians to never forget that Jesus Christ has the power to transform our anxieties…our worries…our burdens into peace and contentment. Our readings this evening remind all of us that there is no need to worry about our lives for the life we live as Christians is not our own but Christ is living within us! As Christian believers we were baptized into the new life of Christ…A life which transforms minds, and moves hearts…A life that is poured out for others…What greater gift have we to be thankful for? The real question now becomes: Have you and I embraced Christ’s gift of life to the fullest or not?
As a nation we have so much to be thankful for…our freedom, our democracy, the beauty of our land, the freedom to practice our faith, the blessings of family and friends, and our church communities. All of these blessed realities point to a larger truth…that you and I do not enjoy these benefits of merely our own accord…like our worries and anxieties, we do not carry these blessings on our own…True Thanksgiving helps us to recognize that all that we have, all that we are, is a gift from God!
We gather together this evening as one Christian Family to offer thanks and praise to God. In a spirit of thanksgiving, we rejoice together as a Christian People knowing that our God has ransomed us from worries, ransomed us from anxieties and fear…ransomed us from death…bringing us to new life in Christ Jesus! As a people united in the baptismal spirit of Christ, we place our fears, our worries and our anxieties in the loving embrace of Jesus.
Our prayer this evening becomes the words of the native tribesmen: “We have walked too far too fast and now we must wait for our souls to catch up with us.” Have you and I embraced Christ’s gift of life to the fullest by allowing our souls to catch up with us? This thanksgiving may we all have the courage to rest in the peace of God, the peace that only Christ can give.
Kate’s Part Again
I have had the privilege of traveling to
For the past year, the people of
Yet Jesus says, “Do not worry about what you will eat or what you will drink or what you will wear.”
He says it every time a group leaves a place like Lord of Life or Holy Angels to travel to the
Jesus says to all his children, “Do not worry… But strive first for the
And the only thing the people can do is say, “Thank You.”
Amen.
So I'm currently wearing shorts... not because I was playing basketball but because it's been that nice here lately. At some point today I checked the temperature and it was 67 degrees. 67! At the end of November! In Northeast Ohio! It's kind of some odd weather... particularly for some place where all the people keep telling me that I'll see more snow than I've seen in a while (doubtful... the mountains out west have a fair amount... but whatever). Also, lately I have seen quite a few people putting up sticks and poles around small roads and driveways... in an effort to see where the road or driveway is in the event of snow. Yet it's warm.
Granted, I know this will end... surely by weeks end when our warm temperatures are scheduled to end and the snow is supposed to set in. But I'll take the warm temperatures for now. =)
This has been a pretty good week for me. I preached twice... once on Wednesday with the intern from Holy Angels Catholic Church for Thanksgiving Eve and then again today for Christ the King. As such, I'm going to post both sermons for those who want to read them. Tonight, I post today's sermon because I conviently left my jump drive at the office with Wednesday's sermon on it. Expect me to post that one tomorrow or the day after.
Without further delay... here's today's sermon:
Sermon – Christ the King – November 26, 2006
Text: Revelation 1:4b-8
Some of you may have heard me say that there are two things that are the devil for me – pumpkin pie and green chile dip.
Both are oh so tasty – rich, creamy goodness. Warm pumpkin pie with just the right amount of whip cream on top… yummmmmmmm….. And green chile dip with the right combination of garlic and other spices plus the chiles to give it the right flavor and a bit of a kick.
Give me some corn chips and a tub of green chile dip and it’ll be gone in no time. Same with the pumpkin pie – give me a fork and soon the whole pie will be gone.
I’m held captive to those two foods, I can’t stop eating them and self control is something that exists only in my dreams.
Simply put, pumpkin pie and green chile dip are the devil. I can’t stop eating them and inevitably they will make me gain three hundred pounds.
I’m starting to think that I should put on the list of devils, of things that hold me captive, anything that Jim Meyers brings into the office. That includes any form of beef jerky and chocolate.
But I’m not only held captive by food. There’s always perfectionism. Feeling like I need to be perfect, to do everything right, to be the best at everything. Feeling like I need to earn everything, that what I have is due to me. I work and work and work in order to obtain perfection – but really it is unattainable and I usually just wear myself out trying to get to that unattainable goal.
We’re captive to a society that values money more than love. We’re captive to sales, to the notion that we’ll save money if only we’ll spend more. Captive to buying more stuff in an effort to fill the emptiness inside.
We’re captive to our minds, to the thoughts that drag us down. We’re captive to our desire, our need, for love. We want to be liked, we want to be loved.
Some of us are captive to an illness or disease. We’re captive to that which breaks down our minds and our bodies. We’re captive to cancer… to MS… to AIDS… the effects of the disease hold us down, bind us in shackles.
We are captive to doubt and worry. To greed, to insecurity, to war, to poverty. We are captive to terror and terrorists. We’re captive to death and most often we are captive to ourselves.
We are captive…
It’s like a bad marketing campaign. “We are captive – the story of our lives” is the slogan. What holds us down, what makes us do what we don’t want to. What hurts us; causes pain. We are bound in chains, the chains of self-absorption, of despair, of loneliness.
It’s a marketing campaign the Roman Emperor Domitian repeatedly sold. Late in the first century, at the time of the early church, he reinforced the imperial cult – the notion that the Roman Emperor was a god. People were captive to the cult – captive to Domitian. People were expected to worship the emperor – to make a periodic offering.
Those who refused, those who didn’t buy into the marketing campaign, were tortured and often put to death. Christians were often the ones who refused to worship the emperor.
But some buckled under the pressure… some were more concerned about losing their own lives. They were captive to the emperor and his marketing techniques.
But God was mounting another marketing campaign, a timeless campaign – one that proclaimed the truth. God hired a guy named John as the spokesperson – to proclaim to the people that they really weren’t captive, to proclaim to us that we are not captive. To proclaim freedom from captivity!
So John does – “Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.” Grace and peace in the face of fear and captivity. Grace and peace to you – now. Grace and peace from the one who is and who was and who is to come. Grace and peace from God your Father. Grace and peace from the one who is and the one who always was… long before that emperor of yours. Grace and peace from the one who will always be here… long after the emperor is gone. Grace and peace from the God of Moses who is the great I AM. Grace and peace.
“And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.”
Grace and peace from the one who loves us and freed us! “We are free!” John proclaims.
No need to fear the emperor, we are free. The emperor cannot hold us captive. Pumpkin pie cannot hold us captive.
Never mind the beast that comes. Never mind the forces of evil. Never mind what weighs you down. Never mind the devil that holds you captive. John proclaims that Jesus frees us from all of that.
But it doesn’t end there. There’s more to this campaign, more information.
Jesus has “made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” Jesus has set us free to be a kingdom. Free to worship, free to serve, free to create justice, free to give, free to be children of God.
“Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him.” Every eye will see Jesus, even those who pierced him. Even the emperor, the one who claims to be a god, will see Jesus. No one will be left out.
Jesus is the real king, the king over all the rulers of the earth, even the nasty emperor.
In the end, Jesus offers his own voice to the campaign – “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
I am the Alpha and Omega. I am the beginning and the end. I am A to Z and everything in between.
I am A for always loving you.
I am C for chemo for cancer.
I am D for dying and then rising again.
I am G for giving you life.
I am H for hugs in the midst of the pain.
I am L for love.
I am P for protection.
I am S for strength.
I am T for the tears that you cry with friends.
I am W for winning the war over sin and death.
I am everything – I am the beginning and I am the end. I was here before creation began and will be here long after it ends. I am the one who knew you before you were born. I am the one who calls you by name. I am Lord of all – Lord of all the rulers of the earth. I am the one who was, the one who is, and the one coming. I AM.
Everything that we think holds us captive cannot possibly hold us down. Christ frees us, releases us from our shackles. Christ has power over everything, everything.
Even D for doubt and P for perfectionism or perhaps even pumpkin pie. Even G for green chile dip and W for war. Even A for AIDS and M for MS. Even C for commercialism and R for racism. Christ is Lord of all.
God’s marketing campaign isn’t really a marketing campaign at all – it is truth. We are not captive! We are free!
Everything, big and small, is subject to God, subject to Jesus. Jesus is everything – Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, A to Z… and everything in between.
God wins. Pure and simple. Amen.
Well, I just finished reading A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren. A good book worth pondering and I think I'm already most of the way in McLaren's "camp" in my own thinking. McLaren advocates for a post-modern church... it's not the easiest thing to explain and I'm still wrestling with what it means to be a post-modern church, so I'll probably try explaining it some other time. But for the moment I am wrestling with the notion that there is need for a significant change in the church.
Part of my questioning tonight is based on something I was faced with earlier today. I was watching Six Feet Under (a TV show) and one of the characters is talking to his priest about bringing in another priest, one who would probably shake things up a bit, and David, the character, tells his priest he's against bringing in the other priest. When asked why, David says, "My life is a complicated mess right now and I've experienced a lot of loss lately. It seems that everything around me is changing and church is the one thing that is constant in my life. I need the place that helps me understand the changes to be constant." (Or something like that... my own paraphrase)
I thought about that for a bit today. Is that the main reason people come to church? For the stability? Is this why the church really hasn't changed a whole lot in many, many years? What does Jesus call us to? Are we not talking enough about how to deal with change? What are our priorities? Are we holding on to this life too much and that's why change is such a battle for us?
So now, faced with all those questions and my recent reading, I've been thinking about transition in the church. If we are to move to something that I think is a healthier way of looking at things and probably more true to the Gospel and what Jesus was about, how do we do that in congregations where people expect the Church to be the one constant in their ever changing lives? Should we make the change, trying to be as conscious of the fear of change, and hope that those people who can't deal with the change find the Church after things settle into place? Will things even settle out soon enough for those who left to come back? Even if they did, would those people even come back or would things have scarred them to the point of having no desire to at all?
I have just spiraled myself out of control with questions that are probably only answered by trying something. But what I have become more conscious of is how we deal with change. What is constant in our lives... God. We need to continually focus on God and talk about that in the midst of the change. I think we also need to talk about the change in the church. Don't change things and hope that people deal with them. Intentionally say, "I know we are talking about some major changes here, but here's why I think it is important to do this..." Focus on God and be honest. Be willing to change if the change we started with isn't working.
A lot of pondering that will not stop for a little while I'm sure. But that's where I'm at for the moment. Look forward to your thoughts and comments.
Kate
I've attended or lead at four worship services this weekend... two more than the average for me. In addition to the two Sunday morning worship services here at Lord of Life, I attended a Lutheran Revival Saturday night and a U2charist tonight. I did in fact say a Lutheran Revival... and no, there wasn't an altar call. =)
I attended both services with a group of people from Lord of Life. I had thought about attending them out of curiosity. But I started to talk with a couple of people in the office about them and since we are considering starting a satellite church which would most likely offer worship in a style different from the traditional Lutheran setting, we decided to offer these worship services as 'field trips' to explore the possibility for alternative services. So some of us went Saturday night to the Revival and then some more of us went to the U2charist tonight. Both were at other Lutheran Churches here in Cleveland.
The Revival was interesting... long, but interesting. We left when the service was basically over, but not completely and that was after two hours had already passed. There were places where I did not realize we'd been there for so long (a good thing), but there were others when I thought, we really should move on. They brought in an Evangelist from West Virginia and a good portion of his congregation came with him including their praise band. Apparently the ELCA also got word of this and is interested in pursuing the Revival movement so they sent one of the Evangelism people from the Churchwide office and a camera crew to make a documentary. It was nuts... all for something that I thought was just ok. I thought there were some things that were done well and there were others that were done not so well. So by and large the service was just ok and not something I'd like to pursue in my congregation... at least the way they did it.
As for the U2charist, it was something I thought was very well done and really enjoyed it. For those of you not familiar with the concept, a U2charist is a Eucharist service set around the music of the Irish band U2. The band's music is clearly Christian and the lead singer, Bono, is a big proponent of the ONE campaign (if you want more information about that, click the rotating ribbon in the top right corner of this blog or visit www.one.org). I thought the music was better than the revival which is not terribly surprising because I think U2's music has more depth than the praise songs played at the revival. The bonus was that the band who played the music was very gifted musically and the music sounded very much like the actual band was playing it. Additionally, the prayers and other insertions in the service were well done and very meaningful. Ironically, I believe I was more revived spiritually (what the revival was supposed to do) from this service than from the revival.
So two very different services - two different experiences. The U2charist is something I would consider doing, but only if I could find musicians talented enough to pull it off musically. But the concept seems viable to me... music with depth, music that engages, combined with prayers and a message with meaning. Now that I think about it, I think the depth is what was missing from the revival for me. I've never really been one for cheap faith - faith that is all praise all the time. Maybe I am just painfully Lutheran and looking for the Theology of the Cross - the suffering at the foot of the cross that makes me long for God's grace. But then again, maybe I long for that because that's how we get to a faith with meaning. Just maybe.
Kate
My homepage is set to CNN.com partially because I need something with the news in front of me all the time so that I stay at least somewhat connected to the rest of the world. Anyway, when I looked today, I noticed the following headline:
Eunuchs find jobs as tax collectors
I wondered as I read it... have I managed to travel back to Biblical times and what kind of story does this refer to? Come to find out it's some new program in India... I'm really not sure where they got the idea or why it's working... but whatever. There it is... =)
Kate
One advantage mainline churches (like the ELCA, United Methodist Church, and Presbyterian Church USA) have over Evangelical, non-denominational churches is the tie to a larger system. With Ted Haggard's recent actions and resignation from his church in Colorado Springs (http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/05/haggard.allegations/index.html), his church is in danger (along with other Evangelicals) of having a fall out. Often times, large non-denominational churches are led by very charismatic leaders who attract people. The problem becomes a focus on the leader perhaps above God even. Then when one of these leaders falls, God goes down with him.
In a mainline denomination, there is a larger system that can help in such a situation. Bishops or other pastors are able to step in and help the healing process. It sounds like some of that is happening in Colorado Springs at New Life Church - but the process there and the standards for leaders seem to be much less defined than in the ELCA and other mainline denominations.
It is difficult no matter which church denomination something like this happens in - but we are all flawed and human. I pray for Haggard, his family, and all the members of his church now.
Kate
I believe it is time for a few pictures.
So, back in October, we had our first snow here. It wasn't much, but we did have some accumulation in October. Here's a picture of the small amount of snow we got.
Also, for Halloween, I thought I should be a good Lutheran and carve Martin Luther into the side of a large pumpkin... so here are a few pictures of that.
Finally... we are barely into November and are already having our second snow. This round promises more snow than the first partially because it's colder but really because there is already more snow on the ground than the last time. Here's a picture I took tonight and imagine that it will continue to snow overnight and tomorrow morning.
