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.