Worship
Published: March 12th, 2012
Date: March 11, 2012
Title: Pathway of Righteousness
Preaching: Rev. Dr. Donna Pritchard
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22
A friend of mine tells this story of his first Sunday in a new church. He was newly ordained, fresh out of seminary, and nervous, as he prepared to meet his congregation in worship for the very first time. He had checked and double-checked everything and believed that every detail was in place.
As the service began, he went to the pulpit to lead the call to worship. And wouldn’t you know it – the microphone would not work. He tried everything, but nothing would turn the microphone on. My friend began to panic and then said rather loudly, “Something is wrong with this microphone”. Whereupon the people responded, “And also with you!”
Something is wrong this morning. Something is wrong with Jesus in the Temple, clearing out the merchants and the money changers. Driving out those who were selling the cattle, the sheep, the doves – even the ones who were changing people’s money from Roman coins into Temple coins.
These folks were providing a service for people who had traveled a long way to comet to the temple. After all, travelers could hardly have packed the appropriate sacrificial animals in their luggage! And there was no such thing as a debit card for the temple tax. So they were providing a legitimate service there inside the Temple.
And obviously, something was wrong with Jesus that day. And just as obviously, something might be wrong with us today. Indeed, every time we let the worries of the world rob us of the peace of Christ, something is wrong with us. Every time we hang on for dear life to the very things we are called to give away, something is wrong with us. Every time we think of Jesus bold and angry in Jerusalem’s temple, and then imagine Jesus meek and mild in our own … something is wrong with us.
Jesus has been pushed far enough and he is asking us to join him this morning on the Pathway of Righteousness. It is a pathway which is full of disconcerting twists and turns. It is a pathway which requires careful attention and wary negotiation. It is a pathway which involves both of what St. Augustine called “hope’s two beautiful daughters … Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain that way.”
Anger at the way things are. Jesus cleansing the Temple is a stark warning against any and every false sense of security we may have when we consider the way things are – our self-satisfaction, or spiritual complacency in the face of ongoing political and economic injustice. Or our misplaced allegiances, or our religious presumption which fools us into thinking we do not need to travel the pathway of righteousness because we have already arrived at God’s destination.
There are plenty of reasons for us to be angry at the way things are, and I think it is time for us to make friends with that anger. New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan reminds us that:
“Jesus was not against the Temple as such, and he was not against the high priesthood as such. His anger was a protest from the legal and prophetic heart of Judaism, against the religious leaders’ cooperation with Roman imperial control. Jesus’ way is against any capital city’s collusion between religion and imperial violence at any time and in any place.”
700 years before Jesus, the prophet Amos taught that if God has to choose between worship and justice, God will clearly choose justice every time. As if to suggest that God’s hope – and our pathway to righteousness – will always involve both anger and courage.
While it may not take very much for us to get angry at the way things are, it will surely take a fair amount of courage for us to change the status quo! It will take the kind of courage which allows us to enter – and to stay – on the pathway of righteousness with one another. To stay on that pathway where we not only acknowledge what is right. We also recognize what is wrong in the world, and even in ourselves.
We come to worship this morning distracted by many things. Some here are in real physical pain, suffering from illness. Others are consumed by grief, or confused by loneliness. Some of us are here, worried about our children, while others may fear their financial security might be slipping away. And some of us are just chomping at the bit to “get back out there” into lives so full of joy that we can hardly stand still for a few moments of reflection.
You may have heard it said that we here in the Pacific Northwest – especially in Oregon – are living in what researchers have dubbed the “None Zone.” Meaning that, when Oregonians are asked to name a religious affiliation, 63% say they are not affiliated with any church or religious institution. When asked if we are Christian or Muslim, Jewish or Hindu, Buddhist, or something else … 63% of us choose “none of the above,” compared to 41% for Americans as a whole.
Here in the “None Zone,” our neighbors and friends, our co-workers and compatriots are likely to tell us that they are “spiritual but not religious.” Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple – what we might call “occupying the Temple” – is spiritual theater of the highest order. And as Jesus turns over tables, he calls us to become both religious and spiritual. Jesus calls us to risk identifying with a religious group where our anger at the way things are can be yoked together with courage to change them to the way things could be in God’s realm. He calls us to be religious in our affiliation in order to be spiritual in our empowerment to see God’s presence not only here, but beyond these walls.
California’s Inyo County is home to the highest point in the lower 48 states, Mount Whitney. This Sierra Nevada peak is just five feet short of measuring 14,500 feet above sea level. Less than 100 miles to the southeast, and still in Inyo County, is Death Valley. This depression’s deepest point- near Badwater, California – lies some 282 feet below sea level, and it is the lowest point not just in the 48 contiguous states, but in the whole North American continent.
There are a few neighboring mountains from which, on a clear day, you can see both of these locations. Standing on one of those peaks, it is possible to see both the lowest and the highest points.
Kind of like when we are standing in the midst of Christian community, or standing in the presence of Christ. It is possible there, with that vantage point, to see both the highest and most hopeful possibilities of life – to see things the way they could be, in God’s realm. While at the same time, to glimpse the lowest and most heart-breaking realities of the way things currently are. No wonder we need both anger and courage. No wonder we need each other on the pathway of righteousness.
Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr lived through two World Wars, the Depression, the Holocaust, the Spanish Civil War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the landing on the moon, the Cold War…and everything else that came between 1892 and 1971. Niebuhr was insistent that humanity’s problems do not stem from ignorance, or a lack of intelligence, but with something far more elemental than that. Niebuhr questioned political, moral, and intellectual idealism by pointing out what he called “the limits of knowledge and the necessity of faith.”
St. Paul seems to be suggesting the same thing when he writes:
“When it’s all said and done, the sum total of the human race’s intellectual achievements don’t even begin to stack up against the foolishness of God; and the combined force of all the world’s powers is puny in comparison to the weakness of God. Sisters and brothers, you don’t have to look any further than your own experience of God’s call to see the truth of this.”
God placed a call in your life – and in mine – regardless of our place in the power structure of this world … regardless of our educational levels, or our socio-economic status. Regardless of where we have been or who we claim to know. And who are we to say that our foolishness is not in some way a part of God’s own wisdom?
When we step onto the pathway of righteousness, where anger and courage live side by side and where hope becomes a reality, because Jesus is still turning over any table that gets in the way. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Category Sermons |
Published: March 11th, 2012
3rd Sunday in Lent
Join us this week for worship at 10:30.
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22
Sermon: Pathway of Righteousness, Rev. Donna Pritchard preaching
Focus: Clarity of Jesus’ ethics; wisdom & foolishness in God’s eyes
This Week’s Music
- Prelude: Andantino, Cesar Franck (1822-1890); Jonas Nordwall, organist
- Anthem: Introit from Requiem, Maurice Durufle; The Chancel Choir, Erick Lichte, conductor
- Offertory: Daughters of Jerusalem, Sir Arthur Sullivan; Benjamin Bell, soloist
- Postlude: Allegro in G Major, William Walond (1719-1768);
We extend a special welcome to our visitors. Portland First United Methodist Church declares that we will be an advocate for peace in our local communities and world. As a Reconciling Congregation, members of this congregation have pledged to welcome and support all who want to worship with us, regardless of race, gender, class or sexual orientation.
Category Sunday Morning |
Author: web manager Published: March 5th, 2012
Date: March 4, 2012
Title: Pathways Into Life
Preaching: The Rev. Donna M. L. Pritchard
Scripture: Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38
Lent is one of the most difficult seasons of the year for the church. The others are simpler, neater, “nicer,” even. I mean, it is easy to appreciate Advent expectation, or Christmas jubilation. It’s easy to understand the Epiphany mission, the Easter resurrection. Even Pentecost, with the whole Holy Spirit thing is easier to take than these Lenten pathways!
Early on Ash Wednesday morning, I found myself in a restaurant, waiting for a friend I was meeting for breakfast, when I happened to overhear this conversation: three men were sitting in the booth next to me when a fourth man joined them. As he sat down, the others greeted him and then began to tease him, saying, “Hey! You’ve got a smudge over your eye!” And “What’s the matter – you get up too late to take a shower?” And “Don’t tell me you’ve been out working already this morning!”
Soon, though, the talk turned, and one of the men quietly said, “No, I know what that is … it’s the sign of the cross, the ashes on your forehead. I went home and washed mine off before coming down here to breakfast.”
When you think about it, isn’t that the problem with Lent? We all have to decide what we will do with the cross. We have to decide whether we will wash it off – wipe it away – or wear it, in more ways than one!
And Jesus only makes matters worse for us this morning, with all his talk about suffering and death. Jesus seems to be suggesting that we all need to figure out what to do with the cross, because there is no escaping it, if we want to follow him.
So we can understand Peter’s confusion this morning. We understand feeling that the cross is a rather risky proposition to embrace. And starting the Gospel lesson with verse 31 is a bit jarring, because we are beginning in the middle of a story. There was a woman in the first church I served who used to do that all the time. She would come up to me and tell me the most outrageous things, or share some deeply felt emotions. And I would not have a clue what she was talking about until I could squeeze in edgewise, “Polly, slow down … start at the beginning, please!”
Just like Polly, we might need to slow down, and start at the beginning. Because it helps to know what came before today’s text. Just a few verses earlier, Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say I am?” And then he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter, characteristically, answers for all of them when he says, “You are the Christ, the Messiah!”
That is where we enter the action today, with Jesus explaining what it means for him to be the Christ, to be the Messiah. He says it means great suffering. And it means rejection. And it means death – his death. Before Jesus gets to the really good part, the Easter part of the story, Peter clearly has quit listening. Peter’s brain is screaming “NOOOOOOO!” Not Jesus, not the Messiah, not the Christ … how can suffering and death possibly be a part of the pathway into life?
I have to admit, when I go to the doctor, or the dentist, or the Department of Motor Vehicles – any place I am likely to have to wait awhile – I sometimes forget to bring along reading material, which places me at the mercy of whatever is in the waiting room. That is why I can say I have actually read “Popular Mechanics”, that is why I have perused “Field and Stream” (at least once or twice). Not too long ago, it was Readers’ Digest I picked up in the waiting room, where I found this little story. A woman writes:
When my sister-in-law Ginny cooks, she likes to substitute ingredients for those in the recipe. One time I gave her the recipe for a chicken and walnuts dish that her husband (my brother) likes, and she served it when I was there for dinner.
In place of walnuts, Ginny used raw peanuts. And for chicken, she substituted beef. In fact, every major ingredient had been replaced. “This is terrible!” my brother said after one bite. Ginny glared across the table at me and said, “Don’t blame me! It’s your sister’s recipe!”
In the Gospel lesson today, Jesus is offering us a recipe to find the pathway into life. It is really very simple and pretty straightforward. Love your life? Lose your life. Someone else put it this way, “If we try to save our lives in some self-centered way, we will surely lose our lives. We cannot preserve this life with prestige, possessions, addictions, or even with our perfectionism. That all backfires.”
So we need to listen then to the other half of the recipe … Lose your life for the sake of Christ’s Gospel, and then you will save your life. It is in losing our agenda, in giving up our illusions of control, and simplifying our desires, that we find our true identity and recognize the true purpose for our lives. It is not that nothing will be lost on the pathway into life. It is simply that something far more valuable and far more important will be gained.
Following Jesus leads us onto the Pathway into Life – but only when we resist the temptation to change the recipe for discipleship. G.K. Chesterton once said that Christianity has not been tried and found wanting …Christianity has been tried and found difficult, and then has been abandoned by most.
When I was the pastor of the United Methodist Church in Albany Oregon I got to know Randy Schutt, the pastor over at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. At that time Randy was probably in his mid to late 40s. He was a kind and very approachable man, who wore his hair about to the top of his shirt collar, sported a beard, and usually dressed fairly casually.
One Good Friday his church was worshipping in a truth-telling, whole-recipe kind of way, paying particular attention to the cross. Toward the end of the service, Randy sat in the front pew while worshippers were invited to come forward to light a candle and pray at the communion rail.
One young child had just finished lighting his candle when he turned, caught sight of Randy, with his beard, his long hair, his white preaching robe, his Birkenstock sandals. And he whispered to Randy, “Jesus! Sorry about the cross.”
That child may have been mistaken about an identity, but he was right on target with his apology. Sorry about the cross, Jesus. Sorry we are so reluctant to see it and to see you as you really are. Sorry we are so quick to want to change the recipe for discipleship, to spare ourselves the vulnerability we inevitably encounter when we choose to follow you, when we choose your pathway into life.
Mennonite pastor Weldon Nisly has been a member of several Christian Peacemaking Teams. He has gone to various war zones as one of many witnesses for peace. Just before Weldon left for Iraq, in the early days of that war, he wrote this to his congregation in Seattle:
Our greatest task in the face of an uncertain and dangerous world is at its deepest not a political task, but a spiritual and pastoral task. It is the task of reminding ourselves and one another that we can never take our vulnerability away. Not in this world. Not in our human condition. And in fact, our vulnerability is part of our greatest potential for creation a more just and liveable world.
Perhaps that is in part what Jesus is trying to tell us today when he invites us onto the Pathway into Life. It just may be that our very vulnerability itself is what saves us – when we lose our lives in God’s name; when we lose our lives in Christ’s mission; when we lose our lives in the Spirit’s power. Then it is that we save them, after all! Amen.
Category Sermons |
Published: March 4th, 2012
2nd Sunday in Lent
Join us this week for worship at 10:30.
Scripture: Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38
Sermon: Pathways into Life, Rev. Donna Pritchard preaching
Focus: Lose your life (as you know it) to find life
This Week’s Music
- Prelude: Prelude No. 3, Ernest Bloch; Jonas Nordwall, organist
- Anthem: In Paradisum from Requiem, Maurice Durufle; The Chancel Choir, Erick Lichte, conductor
- Offertory: Fac ut portem ‘Sabat Mater’, G. Rossini; Eva Uherek-Cummins, soloist
- Postlude: Fantasia in C Major, J. S. Bach;
Our Offertory soloist this morning is Eva Uherek-Cummins. Eva is a Music Intern in the Chancel Choir’s Alto Section. She is a student at Portland State University studying Vocal Performance. The Music Interns are paid a stipend that comes from the interest on the Allen Endowment account and from individuals and families of FUMC.
Category Sunday Morning |
Published: February 27th, 2012
Date: February 26, 2012
Title: “Pathways Into the Wilderness”
Preaching: The Rev. Donna M.L. Pritchard
Scripture: Genesis 9:8-17; Mark 1:9-15
Here it is, the first Sunday in Lent, and we are being offered a pathway “into the wilderness”. The wilderness – it is that place where pretense fades away and honest vulnerability becomes possible. In the wilderness we are unable to keep up our public image of effortless perfection – that self-imposed expectation which so often plagues us, even in our quietest moments. In the wilderness we are free to confess the messy reality of our lives – like the truth of the often over-powering temptation to forget God’s promises and to focus all our energy solely on our fears.
The first Sunday in Lent, and all we’ve got is this pathway into wilderness? Well, don’t act so surprised. You know as well as I do that this is a pathway we have traveled many times before.
Indeed, we know the wilderness fairly well, because that is where we live much of our lives. We live in that space between certainty and doubt, in that time between hope and fear, in the experience between promises made and promises fulfilled. The wilderness is where we live much of our lives. So when Jesus travels down that pathway into wilderness, we are already there.
How quickly Mark’s Gospel moves us from anointing to testing, from the celebration of Jesus’ baptism to the temptation of Jesus’ soul! There is no fan club for Jesus, no adoring crowds follow him down this particular pathway. In the wilderness he finds only the wild beasts and the angels.
Dr Robert Price, professor of Biblical Criticism, points out to his students that Mark is the only gospel writer who gives his book a title. You remember how in the first verse of the first chapter Mark declares that his story is “the beginning of the good news”. In Price’s words, “This is such a hopeful title, especially in a time when so many pay daily that there is more good news to come – somehow, someday.”
If Mark’s story, and Jesus’ life, are just the “beginning” of the Gospel, then we have reason to believe in more than the wilderness where we live. If this is the beginning, then we can strain our eyes and crane our necks to see beyond it, to find the good news which is sure to follow.
When I first arrived at seminary we had a few days of orientation – the standard, getting-to-know-you, awkward kind of events that every class endures. There were campus tours and welcome speeches, chapel services and house-warming parties. But what I remember most is the picnic we had up in the mountains just west of Denver.
I happened to ride up there with four other students in a rather old, somewhat rickety car which belonged to a woman named Gail. All the way up the mountain Gail had to coax her car along. Pushing the accelerator all the way to the floor, we still crawled along in the far right lane, and joked about getting out to push as even the semis went whizzing past us.
Finally, we got to the picnic. And we had a fine time. And then it was time to go back down the mountain, back down that steep grade with all its twists and turns and dangerous curves. And for all of us passengers, it felt as if Gail was still riding the accelerator when she should have been using the brake!
Fasters and faster we hurtled down the mountain, careening around curves, until finally one of our classmates (I think he was from Nebraska, or Kansas – some flat place), couldn’t take it any longer. And he cried out at the top of his lungs, “Stop the car! Let me out of here! God’s got great plans for me!”
And of course, we never let him live that down! But it is true, you know. God does have great plans for him. God has great plans for me. And God has great plans for you. And sometimes, life will feel as if we are careening down the mountainside, and we suspect we are not even in the driver’s seat.
Jesus’ life was like that. It was full of adversity and suffering and even defeat. He did not, in his lifetime, replace all the unjust earthly rulers. He did not manage to lift all the lowly and oppressed, to eliminate hunger or eradicate poverty, to wipe our racism or end violence and warfare, to take away all disease and cancel out all pain.
We still know all about needless deaths and unending violence. We still see the innocents suffering. We still recognize injustice in everything from politics to economics to the social community. We have only to open our eyes to see those who are hungry, to recognize those who live in fear, to notice those whose grieving is unceasing, or whose isolation is unbearable.
In the wilderness of our lives it is easy to see that God’s Reign has not yet arrived in its fullness. And it is easy to become jaded, to decide we will never move beyond the “beginning of the Gospel”. And yet, even in the wilderness there is beauty. Even in the wilderness there is peace. Even in the wilderness there is hope.
When I flew down to San Diego for Jurisdictional meetings in January, I happened to pick up the Alaska Airlines magazine, and my imagination was captured by an article about the bristlecone pines in California’s Inyo National Forest. According to the article:
“These pines are gnarled, stiff-needled denizens of incredibly harsh environments, and they can live more than 4,500 years. The oldest recorded living bristlecone is approaching 5000 years old… dating back farther than the Egyptian pyramids and already more than 2500 years old when Jesus took the pathway into the wilderness…
“In the kingdom of the pines, summer sun sears the hillsides and raises the temperature above 90 degrees. Clouds are distant rumors; rain almost a legend. Dust paints the air the hue of dry grass. In winter, temperatures plummet below zero; winds how; skiffs of snow scurry over bare ridges into protected gullies, leaving the ground as dry as it is in summer.
In this very harsh environment – this wilderness place – bristlecone pines have engineered a longevity strategy that confounds human expectations… the harsher the circumstances, the longer the pines seem to live…
It is an axiom of biology that plants must grow or die. At 10,000 feet in the White Mountains, a bristlecone will encounter, over the centuries, some brutal years of extreme drought or severe cold. How does it cope? The answer is astounding.
In an incredibly bad year, bristlecones meet the biological imperative to grow or else, by laying down an annual growth ring consisting of a single cell. Yes, one single cell in a whole year…”
Even in the wilderness there is beauty. And there is peace. And there is hope. Remember how Mark puts it, in his distinctively abbreviated style…The Spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights, he was tested by Satan. Wild animals were his companions, and angels took care of him.
In Maurice Sendak’s children’s book Where the Wild Things Are, Max is terrorized by all manner of night-time fear. There are “wild animals” galore. There are things unknown and things too well known not to fear. “They roared their terrible roars, and gnashed their terrible teeth, and rolled their terrible eyes, and showed their terrible claws… Until Max said BE STILL!… and tamed them with the magic trick of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once. And they were frightened and called him the most wild thing of all and made him king of all wild things…”
Just like Max – just like Jesus – we are being given today a pathway into wilderness. And if we have the courage to take that path, if we have the faith to trust the journey through it, we will find in the wilderness the wild things. But also the angels. For God’s covenant still stands. And the rainbow arcs over the wildest of wilderness places, all those places where we are free to confess, and even to accept the messy reality of each of our lives. In the wilderness, there is beauty, there is peace, and there is hope. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Category Sermons |
Published: February 26th, 2012
1st Sunday in Lent
Join us this week for worship at 10:30.
Scripture: Genesis 9:8-17; Mark 1:9-15
Sermon: Pathway Into the Wilderness, Rev. Donna Pritchard preaching
Focus: God does not leave us alone in wilderness
This Week’s Music
- Prelude: Maestoso in C# minor, L. Verne (1870-1937)
- Anthem: Kyrie from Requiem, Maurice Durufle; The Chancel Choir, Erick Lichte, conductor
- Offertory: In the Beauty of Holiness, Arnold B. Sherman; juBELLation, Karin McDonough, director
- Postlude: Lauda Sion, Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
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Category Sunday Morning |
Author: web manager Published: February 20th, 2012
Date: February 19, 2012
Title: “A Sacrament of Failure”
Preaching: The Rev. Donna M.L. Pritchard
Scripture: Mark 9:2-9
Transfiguration…what are we to make of this?! It is no wonder that the disciples were frightened! I would be frightened, too, Jonas’ robe – or Maribeth’s dress – or Don’s sport coat were to suddenly become an eye-popping, unearthly, dazzling white. I mean, Mardi Gras was last night!
And what would we make of a mystery such as transfiguration in the cold light of day? For that is what the transfiguration of Jesus is – it is a mystery. Or, as the New Testament would put it, it was a case of mysterion. That’s Greek for “mystery” and it means, That which is outside the range of unassisted natural understanding. Mysterion, the Biblical notion of mystery is something which can only be made known through Divine revelation, and that revelation can only be accomplished in a time and a manner chosen by God. Okay, so that fits when it comes to transfiguration.
But few of us here speak ancient conversational Greek. For one thing, it’s so hard to find a conversational partner for that these days! So, let’s try translating “mysterion”. In Latin, the word becomes sacramentum. And in English, of course, it is sacrament.
So you could say that the Transfiguration of Jesus is a sort of sacrament. It is something which is done by God. And it is done in God’s own way, in God’s own time. Peter understood the experience for what it was. He may not have understood it – it was a mystery, after all. And his response may have been a little too quick, a little too easy or superficial. But Peter saw in this event and in this moment a golden opportunity. Here was their chance to show the world who Jesus really was! This was a public relations plum, an advertising miracle! Surely this would shut their critics up, and would put a stop to all the scoffing and hooting and downright derision those first disciples received from neighbors and friends, even from their families.
Even if the vision did not last, Peter figured they could build a few booths up on that mountaintop. They could create monuments to this moment of success, and people would flock to that site. They would come hoping to recapture the experience, and a mega-movement might develop as the world recognized Jesus’ mission as an unqualified success.
So why doesn’t Jesus just go along with Peter’s plans? Probably because he understands the Transfiguration differently. Certainly, Jesus understands his own life and mission quite differently. Because he also seems to understand the notion of “success” in a very different way.
For Jesus “success” is as much a mystery as failure is a sacrament. Think about his own life and mission if you will. Instead of establishing a “Center for Jesus Teaching”, which could pull students and wisdom-seekers from all over the world, Jesus chooses to wander the countryside, rarely spending the night in the same town twice. Instead of organizing a hierarchy for training scores and scores of followers, or establishing some well-prescribed standards for training disciples, Jesus chooses twelve friends and provides them with “on the job” training. Instead of playing up his miraculous abilities, Jesus chooses to appear almost anonymously, as a plain-spoken rabbi and teacher.
And the reception he receives is hardly a standing ovation. As theologian Leonard Sweet put it, “There is really no such thing as ‘failure’ or ‘success’ for Jesus. He never worried about struggling up or slipping down any ladder, but only was concerned with lowering himself toward those in need and extending himself forward into God’s service.”
And the Transfiguration – this mysterious, sacramental moment – stands as a reminder of that. It stands as a “sacrament of failure”, in the ways the world might understand success and failure. Taken by the world’s measure, using our everyday calculations for who is winning and who is losing, this moment of mysterious sacrament is nothing less than a poignant reminder of failure. But taken by God’s measure, in God’s eyes and in God’s heart, Transfiguration is anything but a failure.
Because Jesus knew what was in store for him. He understood better than Peter or James or John – even better than you and I – what was waiting for him when he went back down the mountain. He knew what was waiting for him in Jerusalem – the adoring crowds who would later turn murderous, the Pharisees who were out to get him, a Roman governor too insecure in himself to resist an obvious injustice, an execution and a death of the harshest variety.
Jesus knew what was waiting for him. And the Transfiguration prepared him to face it all. Just as our own moments of mystery, our own “sacraments of failure” prepare us to face the consequences of faith. It’s not that we really fear crucifixion. But as James Taylor sings:
Old Herod’s always out there. He’s got your card on file. And it’s a lead-pipe cinch, if you give him an inch, old Herod’s gonna take a mile.
Again, in Sweet’s words,:
As people of faith, we must fight against the almost pathological desire and expectation that we will be liked by everyone. Somewhere we have imbibed the heady notion that if we sow love and compassion in our community, we will reap love and compassion, and perhaps even acclaim and recognition (success as the world understands it).
We need to remember that Jesus sowed love and compassion and he reaped death on a cross… There comes a time for us to shake the dust off our feet, commend our failures to God, and get on with our mission.
There comes a time for each of us – and for all of us together – when we accept the mystery of God’s revelation, however it comes to us. There comes a time when we receive the grace of transformation, whenever it happens in us. There comes a time when we leave the mountaintop experiences of faith, and head back into the valleys of life to face whatever our discipleship might bring.
A couple of weeks ago I told you a story about one of my mountaintop experiences – one of those God moments – when I was on a Volunteer in Mission trip to Bolivia. On that same trip, we took a little time to go visit Machu Picchu, high up in the mountains of Peru. Like most people, we took a train from Cusco to Machu Picchu. It is an amazing four-hour train ride in one of those cars where the seats face each other. They are so close together that your knees touch, so in that four hours you have a chance to get to know your traveling companions rather well.
Sharing my seat was a man from Brazil, who fortunately spoke very good English (since my Portugese is non-existent). We had a great conversation. I learned all about his family and his career, his vacation and his friends. And I told him about our mission team and the work we had done in Bolivia. I told him about many of our adventures, and even some of our misadventures. And then he commented to me, “I am very surprised to see you smiling and laughing about all this. Usually, Americans want to have everything function smoothly and efficiently and according to plans – just so.”
Now obviously that is not the mind-set of every American. But still, that remark made me wonder – how was it that we were able to become so flexible and understanding, even so patient with each other and with our adventures? Travel will do that for you if you are open to it. But even beyond the travel, beyond the difference in culture and language, climate and food and faith we encountered, our perspectives had changed. Because God had met us on the mountaintop. And then God had sent us back into the world with our expectations of “success” now transformed by mystery – by the sacrament of failure.
So this morning I suggest we consider the disciples’ mountaintop epiphany. And that we pay attention to the way the story ends. Or rather, the way it goes on and on. Verse 9 says it all…As they were coming down the mountain…
Here we are, the morning after our Mardi Gras party, coming down from the epiphany moment and preparing for Lent. I know it would be easier, maybe more fun to stay at the party, and to somehow find a shortcut to Easter. But we can’t get there without going through Lent. United Church of Christ preacher Mike Graves puts it this way:
If scholars are right, suggesting that the Transfiguration is a glimpse of things to come, then it is worth noting that Jesus’ words of explanation about it end in resurrection. He comes down from the mountain warning the disciples not to say anything about what happened there until he is raised from the dead. If the beginning of Lent is ashes, its end is resurrection.
If the beginning of sacrament is mystery, our failure might yet prove to be success. Our failure might yet prove to be success when we come down from the mountain believing that God is present in the darkness before the dawn. When we believe that God is present in the waiting and the uncertainty where fear and courage join hands, where conflict and caring link arms, and where the sun rises over barbed wire. Our success might be revealed in the midst of what we thought were failures, when we travel through every valley trusting in a with-us God. This God who sits down in our midst to share our humanity, to take us beyond safety into action, beyond security into vulnerability, beyond Lent to Easter, beyond failure to success. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Category Sermons |
Published: February 19th, 2012
Join us this week for worship at 10:30.
Scripture: Mark 9:2-9
Sermon: A Sacrament of Failure, Rev. Donna Pritchard preaching
Focus: Mystery of transfiguration leading to the cross
This Week’s Music
- Prelude: Praise and Reflection, Mary Kay Parrish; The Sanctuary Bells, Nancy Hascall, director
- Anthem: Festival Te Deum, Op.32, Benjamin Britten; The Chancel Choir, Erick Lichte, conductor
- Offertory: Blessed Assurance, Knap/Bach, arr. Dobrinsski; The Sanctuary Bells, Nancy Hascall, director
- Postlude: Postlued on ‘Benedicimus Domino’, G. Visona;
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Category Sunday Morning |
Author: Rev. Donna Published: February 12th, 2012
Date: February 12, 2012
Title: “Too Good To Be True?”
Preaching: The Rev. Donna M.L. Pritchard
Scripture: 2 Kings 5:1-14
“It’s too good to be true”. How many times have we said that? “It’s too good to be true”. This can’t be all there is to healing, or wholeness of life. This is too simple, it’s too easy, for real transformation, or real restoration. There has to be more to salvation in the Biblical understanding of whole life, full life, redeemed life. It seems too good to be true!
Poor Naaman’s got a problem. He’s sick – everybody can see that much is true. And he’s tried every known cure, he’s gone to every doctor in his hometown, he’s listened to every self-help guru on television. He’s even ordered snake-oil off the internet! And nothing has worked.
So here he is, in desperation, visiting the prophet Elisah in some backwater town in Israel. Sure, it seems like crazy thing to do. His friends are shaking their heads and wagging their tongues, thinking “Old Naaman’s really gone round the bend on this one!” But why not give it a go? Nothing else has worked.
But still… it is too good to be true, what the prophet says. In fact, it’s so easy, such a simple prescription, that Naaman is outraged. Instead of performing some elaborate healing ritual, instead of offering up elaborate hand motions and mysterious liturgical wordings, Elisha merely tells Naaman to go and wash himself in the Jordan River.
This is worse than “Take two aspiring and call me in the morning”. Doesn’t this prophet know what a VIP is standing at his door? And how could such a simple thing as a bath bring about the kind of healing, and offer the kind of hope that Naaman so desperately needs?
Naaman’s got a problem, all right. And it has nothing at all to do with leprosy. Naaman is like the man in the old joke who is caught in a flood, nad goes up on his roof, where he prays to God to rescue him. Person after person comes by in the rowboat, offering to take the man to safety. “No thanks”, he says each time, “I know God is going to save me.”
Finally the flood rises over him and the man drowns. When he gets to heaven, he loudly complains, “I prayed and prayed, God, but you didn’t save me!” And God sighs a bit, then answers, “I sent four rowboats and you didn’t get into any of them.”
Naaman’s got a problem like the man in the flood. And maybe like me. You see, we also experience God’s grace and think, “This can’t be it… it’s too simple”. We imagine there must be something more to it than what we are offered, and so we wonder “Maybe I need to wait a little longer, pray a little harder, ask a little louder.” We think it is too good to be true!
And then we watch rowboat after rowboat drift on by without us. Leonard Sweet put it this way:
“We don’t claim the healings that do come to us. Instead, we set the evidentiary bar so high for a miracle of healing that a dozen miracles are given to us and we do not notice them at all. For us, a miracle has to be magic, full of special effects, before we pay any attention.”
But most of the miracles of God’s grace – the miracles which transform our thinking, or the miracles which heal our spirits, or the miracles which save our dignity and liberate our potential – most of these miracles are like the rowboats in the story. They come along regularly, sometimes even in response to our prayers. But as Sweet reminds us, “The trick is, you have to get into them to get the full effect.!”
One of the things I really like to practice is Improvisational Theater. It’s not that I am all that comfortable on stage. It is certainly not that I think I can give up my day job and make it as a “ham”. No, I like Improv precisely because it pushes me out of my own comfort zone, and it teaches me some valuable lessons about grace.
You see, in order to do well in Improv, you have to learn these lessons. First, you have to learn to be present in the present moment. You cannot be mutli-tasking – writing up your grocery list or nursing your grudge or rehashing your latest success or failure. You have to be completely present in the present moment.
Secondly, Improv requires that you learn to listen deeply. You have to practice the kind of listening which is focused and clear, in order to hear just what has been said, and nothing else.
Third, to succeed in Improv you have to learn to let go of your own agenda. It really doesn’t matter how I think the scene “should” unfold. It really doesn’t matter how much planning or posing I have done, or how much control I have imagined myself to have. I have to remember that I am not in the scene (or for that matter, in this life) all by myself, and that letting go of my own agenda is essential if I really want to play.
And finally, Improv teaches me to keep moving the story forward. There is nothing worse than stopping the story in its tracks, or letting it die an undignified death. There is movement in Improv just like there is movement in life – and the point is to keep it moving forward, or to get out of the way.
In Improvisational Theater – and in life – our path to success, or to healing or to wholeness may not be a straightforward one. It is not that God requires the twists and turns. It is not that God needs our contortions of impossible movements, or even the smoke and mirrors of illusion. But that we invariably do.
Anything as simple and straightforward as “God loves me, and Christ fills me, just as I am, without one plea” we think must be too good to be true! And so we hang onto our own agendas, we live or die by our own scripts and watch all those rowboats keep drifting right on by!
Even those closest to Jesus – his own disciples then and now – may understand Naaman better than we understand God. “Jesus”, we say, “Couldn’t you act a little more like a king? Couldn’t you perform the way we have scripted you to perform? What’s wrong with a little pomp and circumstance…aren’t you carrying this humility thing a little too far? You said yourself that God would send an army of angels to aid you and all you had to do was ask… why not ask?”
Yet Jesus understands that healing and wholeness of life is not about power and prestige as much as it is about truth. It is in John’s Gospel that Jesus tells his disciples how he is going to die and then goes on to reassure them, “You will know the Truth; and the Truth will set you free.”
As if to suggest that we will not be healed or made whole in this life by Christ the King, unless we are willing to first get into the boat with Christ the Truth. So Naaman’s journey of healing is a good example for all of us. Naaman’s story could be our story. For like him, we want to experience life’s fullest joys. We want to live in God’s deepest serenity. We want to be healed and made whole. And just like Naaman, we have to remain open to all God’s possibilities… whether they show up as rowboats or helicopters or whole flotillas of yachts. Or whether they show up just as you and me letting go of our agendas long enough to move God’s story forward.
Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach once commented that “Full experiences of God can never be planned or achieved. They are spontaneous moments of grace, almost accidental.” Whereupon some one in the audience, undoubtedly thinking they were very clever, asked, “Rabbi, if God-realization is just accidental, why do we work so hard doing all these spiritual practices?” And the Rabbi wisely replied, “In order to be as accident-prone as possible!”
To be as accident-prone as possible. That is why we are here. That is why we continue to pray, to study, to learn, and to grow. Naaman almost blew it. He was ready to do anything in order to be healed. Ready for anything, except perhaps the letting go of his own agenda long enough to accept the simple thing God asked of him. And it took a servant suggesting “why not?” for Naaman to see the possibility right in front of his face.
We can be that servant for each other. We can be those servants for the world around us, today. Because we are in the process of becoming as “accident-prone” as possible. Hey! The waters are rising all around us. Don’t miss the boat! Amen.
Category Sermons |
Published: February 12th, 2012
Join us this week for worship at 10:30.
Scripture: 2 Kings 5:1-14
Sermon: Too Good to Be True?, Rev. Donna Pritchard preaching
Focus: We make faith too difficult/complex
This Week’s Music
- Prelude: Allegretto (Symphonie #5), C. M. Widor (1844 – 1937); Jonas Nordwall, organist
- Introit: Jesus Loves Me, John Ness Beck; The Cherubs and Sound Seekers Choirs, Vanessa Unger & Ronnee Edwards, directors
- Anthem: Lord, Listen To Your Children Praying, Ken Medema; The Chancel Choir, Erick Lichte, conductor
- Offertory: Deposuit Potentes from Magnificat, J. S. Bach; Carl Moe, soloist
- Postlude: Psalm 19, Bendetto Marcello (1686 – 1739);
Carl Moe, the offertory soloist today, is one of our two Music Interns. The Music Intern Program is funded from interest from the Allen Endowment and by contributions from individuals and families. Carl is a student at Portland State University where he is studying vocal performance.
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Category Sunday Morning |
Published: February 5th, 2012
Date: February 5, 2012
Title: “The Most Important of All”
Preaching: The Rev. Donna M.L. Pritchard
Scripture: Isaiah 40:21-31; Mark 12:28-34
I was driving down Highway 26 recently when I saw a car with a very old bumper sticker on it. This was a sticker popular several years ago (you’ve probably seen one just like it), and it read “Honk if you love Jesus.” Another driver near me honked. Then, a little farther down the road, I happened to see another bumper sticker. This one read, “Tithe if you love Jesus. Any fool can honk!”
This experience reminded me of when I went to Bolivia as a part of a Volunteer in Mission Team. One day we took a trip high up into the mountains, above Cotani Alto, to visit a small mission hospital. It wasn’t much of a place; they didn’t have many supplies, and they only had one visiting nurse to care for people from several villages in a 20 mile radius.
As we were touring the place, we stopped to look in to one room, where there was a man, covered in running sores, emaciated and obviously very sick. There, by his bed, was a volunteer, spooning a thin porridge into this man’s mouth, and catching it with the spoon when it ran down his chin.
One of the people in our group didn’t really know what he was saying when involuntarily he commented, “I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars!” Whereupon the volunteer looked up from her labors and quietly remarked, “Neither would I.”
True love. It doesn’t come easy. It is not enough just to honk and say “I love Jesus.” It is not enough just to see pain’s face and then to turn away. It is not enough just to assume that everyone knows they are welcome here, no matter what. It is not enough.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh put it this way:
“People talk about love as though it were something you could give, like an armful of flowers. And a lot of people do give love like that – just dump it down on top of you, a useless, strong-scented burden. I don’t think love is something you give…
Rather, it is a force that enables you to give other things. It is the motivating power which enables you to give strength and power, freedom and peace to others. It is not a result; it is a cause. Love is not a product; rather, it produces.”
True love is not a product – it produces. It is a force in you that enables you to give other things. When Jesus answers the scribe’s question about the commandments this morning, he sets in motion a re-forming, not only of faith, but also of love.
According to Jewish rabbinic tradition, there are 613 mozvot, or “commandments” in the five books of Moses. So which laws are weighty and essential? Which are peripheral and insignificant? It seems like a reasonable question to ask of Jesus. It is a reasonable question – and a logical one – to ask, if what we are after is a sense of our own priorities, our own direction, our own identity.
Dan Clendenin, in his commentary on the Mark text, points out:
“We all define ourselves, shape our identities and create our personas in any number of ways… Some define themselves by the intensity of their work, or the accumulation of their wealth. For others, sports, politics, the environment, sexual identity, ethnicity, or even their alma mater is what defines them the most.”
While these “identity markers” may help us to make sense of ourselves and our community, Clendenin reminds us that “They also have their down side. Sexual identity is a deeply human and powerful trait, but taken by itself as the only thing which defines us, and it becomes reductionistic. Likewise, ethnicity is a legitimate source of pride. But taken by itself, it can also be the source of toxic hatred and can even lead to genocide. Hard work is admirable, but we need to remember that life is far bigger than our work.”
So today we are celebrating “Reconciling Sunday” in this congregation. Today we lift up the courage and the witness of those who, 19 years ago, decided that First United Methodist Church of Portland, Oregon would refuse to put limits on God’s love, or on our sharing of that love. Today we rejoice in the diversity of this beloved community, and in all that we can accomplish when we come together here in God’s name.
But it is not enough just to pat ourselves on the back and decide we’ve made it. It is not enough just to rejoice and celebrate and decide we are done with the struggle, and that we can be content with ourselves just the way we are.
In Luke’s rendering of this Gospel story, Jesus not only answers the question of the most important commandment of all, he goes on to say “Do these, and you shall live.” (Luke 10:25-28). Do these (love God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself), Jesus says. He doesn’t say “memorize these”, or “recite these”. Jesus does not say “teach these”, or “think about these every day”. Jesus says do these, and you will find life and you will know what it truly means to live.
What it truly means to live as a Reconciling congregation I believe is to understand love is that force which enables us to give strength and power, freedom and peace to one another. It is to understand that love is the force which keeps us always ready to make room for one more neighbor – whether that neighbor looks like us, or not; whether that neighbor acts like us or not; whether that neighbor sounds like us, thinks like us, worships like us, or lives like us… or not.
Do these and you shall live. That Jesus asks a lot of us, doesn’t he? He is asking us not only to call ourselves “reconciling”. He is asking us to practice reconciliation. Jesus is asking us to practice bringing people together in love, to practice accepting one another, to practice making our actions consistent with our beliefs, and our lives compatible with Christ’s prioritizing the most important of all commandments.
And here’s the thing – that work can never be fully complete. That job will never be completely done. But don’t worry. If God asks a lot of us, God offers us even more. You remember how the prophet Isaiah puts it…
“Even youths shall faint and be weary; even the young shall fall exhausted. But they who wait for the Lord… (they who trust in God’s grace and practice God’s love)…they shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.”
True love – reconciling ministry – does not come easy. But it does come. For Jesus’ words You shall love the Lord your God…and your neighbor as yourself…in the end, become less a command than a promise. These words become a promise that on the weary feet of faith, and with the fragile wings of hope, you and I will finally learn to love. And then we will know what it is to truly live. Thanks be to God! Amen.
A note about our closing hymn, In the Midst of New Dimensions:
This hymn was written by Rev. Julian Rush, a United Methodist minister who served churches in Dallas, Denver, Boulder and Colorado Springs for 17 years, until he acknowledged his own identity as a gay man.
When he came out, the United Methodist church in Boulder decided he was no longer fit to be their minister, and stopped paying his salary. In 1981 Bishop Melvin Wheatley appointed Julian to St. Paul United Methodist Church in Denver. This was a small church, which already had a pastor and had very little money. But they decided to accept the appointment of Rev. Rush as a public gesture of support for the gay community, and as a statement about their commitment to social justice.
In 1984, St. Paul UMC became one of the first three churches in the nation to become a Reconciling Congregation, believing that all persons are children of God and are welcome in the church.
This hymn is Julian’s own record of the struggle to be honest and open, even in the face of rejection which came as a result of his integrity. Following the church’s inhospitable reaction to Julian, he wrote this loving and affirming hymn. What a powerful lesson for us all about what it means to love God – and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
(thanks to Paul Nickell for this brief hymn history)
Category Sermons |
Published: February 5th, 2012
Join us this week for worship at 10:30.
Scripture: Isaiah 40: 21-31 and Mark 12:28-34
Sermon: The Most Important of All, Rev. Donna Pritchard preaching
Focus: “Success” not measured by the world’s standards, but by God’s
This Week’s Music
- Prelude: Lilliburlero, Richard Purvis (1913-1994); Donna Parker, guest organist
- Anthem: Nunc Dimittis, Robert Scholz; The Chancel Choir, Erick Lichte, conductor
- Offertory: The Wonders of the Universe, Marc’ Antonio Cesti; Deborah Benke, soloist and Nan Anderson, accompanist
- Postlude: Fanfare in D, Jacques Lemmens (1823-1881);
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Category Sunday Morning |
Published: January 29th, 2012
Join us this week for worship at 10:30.
Scripture: Deuteronomy 18:15-20 Mark 1:21-28
Sermon: With Authority, Rev. Dr. Tom Rannells, preaching
Focus: How do we decide what is authoritative for us, and for our life of faith
This Week’s Music
- Prelude: Allegro (Organ Concerto No. 5), G. F. Handel; Jonas Nordwall, organist
- Anthem: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, arr. Gustav Holst; The Chancel Choir, Erick Lichte, conductor
- Offertory: The Lord Is My Shepherd, Samuel Liddle; Carol Young, soloist
- Postlude: Hymn to the Sun, Louis Vierne;
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Category Sunday Morning |
Published: January 23rd, 2012
Date: January 22, 2012
Title: Who’s Calling, Please?
Preaching: The Rev. Donna M. L. Pritchard
Scripture: 1 Samuel 3:1-20; John 1:43-51
- Call waiting
- Caller ID
- Last call return (star 69) Continuous redial
- Voice messaging
- Call forwarding Selective call forwarding Call Trace
- Call rejection
- Speed dialing
- Priority calling
- 3-way calling
And the list goes on … these are just a few of the options available through our telephones today. It is quite a list … and may leave you wondering, “Whatever happened to plain old calling?”
Don’t get me wrong … I love my iphone … even when I find myself wondering if it is a good idea to have a phone that is smarter than me! And I love so many of my options …
I like being able to control what my phone sounds like when it rings (a marimba); I like the alter that sounds when I get a text message (it is called “Sherwood Forest” and sounds like a royal alert).
I like knowing who is calling and being able to choose whether to answer or wait for them to leave a message. I even like being able to silence my phone …or on very rare occasions, to turn it off altogether!
I like these options, and the illusion they create for me, as if somehow my phone will protect me from stress or worry, and its options will limit the disruptions or distractions of my life. It is as if being connected – wirelessly – means I will never again miss out on something good or exciting or true; as if being in control of my telephone means I can be in control of my life!
1But alas … all that is just an illusion. And sometimes, in the midst of the busiest day of the week, surrounded by noise and confusion – or perhaps, in the still, smallest hours of the night – God calls. And where are all my options then? Someone else reflected on the First Samuel story in this way:
“Long ago, even before the rotary phone, the boy Samuel faced this dilemma. Calls from God were rare. But as a child pledged to service in the temple of Yahweh at Shiloh, Samuel was called by name at all times of day and night.
On one particular night, the boy hears his name called and responds, “Hello? Yes? Here I am. What do you want?”
Now if you are Eli, you’re not sleeping that well when the boy comes trotting in to disturb you with this nonsense. Now even the pretense of slumber is gone; it’s just you and your premonitions, a vague sense of doom hanging over you, and the Lord is silent as only the Lord can be silent.
‘Prophets wouldn’t know a vision anymore if it bit them in the behind. So what’s eating this kid? Indigestion? Fleas? Those worthless, carousing sons of yours? No, that boy is sharp…’
If you’re Samuel, you think it must be the old man calling you. But the temple lamp hasn’t even burned out yet, too early for him to be calling for the vessel. He says he didn’t call? What?!
You suspect his eyesight isn’t the only thing fading fast. And there it is again… your name is definitely being called. And again he denies calling you…But then tells you what to do if it happens again.”
In our day, the word of the Lord seems widespread and visions of would-be prophets abound. There is no limit to those who call us by name. So how will we distinguish God’s call?
Where do you suppose Samuel would have ended up – how would the story have gone – if there had been no Eli telling him to listen again for God? Likewise, where will you and I end up, and how will our story go, if we do not help each other to go back and listen again for God’s love?
How will our story go – where will we end up – if we do not remind each other, of the truth which Margaret Shepherd puts into these words:
Sometimes, your only available transportation is a leap of faith!
A leap of faith. That is what Eli tells Samuel to take. That is what Philip wants Nathanael to risk. And that is what God is still offering to each and every one of us. It is no coincidence that Jesus was not a solo act. Do you remember how his first course of active ministry is to begin gathering a community of disciples around him? First it is two of John the Baptist’s followers; then Simon Peter, and Philip, and now Nathanael.
And for each of these disciples there is someone else helping them to see the truth, to hear the call, and to take the leap of faith, to climb on board that only available transportation.
Jesus was not a solo performer. And neither are we. Who’s calling please?
We need each other to identify God’s voice in the midst of the myriad voices we will hear today. We need each other to know who is calling us and why and to help us take the leap when we answer
I think of Gilda Radner’s famous Saturday Night Live sketch as the telephone operator … back when the phone company was just that …’THE phone company’. Do you remember how she would answer “Is this the party to whom I am speaking?”
When Nathanael is challenged to let go of his snobbish prejudice against Nazareth and its potential (can anything good come out of Nazareth), and when Jesus engages him in a Christological discourse about Messianic identity and the possibilities of discipleship, none of this is happening in a vacuum. Rather, the story unfolds as Nathanael is learning to follow, learning how to take that “only available transportation”… the leap of faith.
Christology – understanding the nature of Christ – unfolds for all of us in the course of discipleship. It is as we follow, it is as we answer that we figure out “who is calling, please?”
Kathleen Norris in her book Amazing Grace writes about the role of community in Christology in this way:
“All Christians are considered to have a call to what is commonly termed the priesthood of all believers; all Christians are expected to use their lives to reveal the grace of the Holy Spirit working through them.
It’s a tall order, to literally be a sacrament… and it helps to remember Jesus’ statement later on in the Gospel of John … You did not choose me; I chose you.”
Norris goes on to recount this bit of her personal faith story:
“It was January, bitterly cold and windy, on the day I joined the church, and I found that the sub-zero chill perfectly matched my mood. As I walked to church, into the face of that wind, I was thoroughly depressed. I didn’t feel much like a Christian and I wondered if I was making a serious mistake.
Before the service, the new members gathered with some of the elders. One was a man I’d never liked much. I’ll call him Ed. He’d always seemed ill-tempered to me, and also a terrible gossip, epitomizing the small-mindedness that can make small town life such a trial.
Standing awkwardly before our small group, Ed cleared his throat and mumbled, ‘I’d like to welcome you to the body of Christ.’
The minister’s mouth dropped open, as did mine. Neither of us had ever heard words remotely like this come from Ed’s mouth. Like distant thunder, the words made me more alert, attuned to further disruptions in the atmosphere. What had I gotten myself into?
I was astonished to realize, as the service began, that while I may never like Ed very much, I had just been commanded to love him. My own small mind had just been jolted, and the world seemed larger, opened in a new way.”
Ed’s words have power because they are words of Christian community. They are words which say to all of us welcome, here you are joined with us, here we will help you to take the leap of faith, as together we figure out “who’s calling, please?” They are words which remind us that we are in this together – no matter where we come from – and that God is calling from the most unexpected of places, all the time.
When I was a kid, the label Made in Japan signified a cheap trinket that cost little and was worth even less. It was a common term of derision, a way of saying that something was likely not made well and would not last long. But … by the time I graduated from college, when my dad took me shopping for my first car, he insisted I buy Japanese, because that way he knew I’d have something reliable and not likely to cause me a lot of trouble.
Poor Nathanael … I wonder how often the guys reminded him of his first reaction to Philip’s invitation? I wonder how hard it was for him to shift so suddenly, thinking how can anything good or decent or true or exciting or long lasting possibly come from that little backwater town of Nazareth?
He might have missed out altogether, if it hadn’t been for his friends suggesting he “come and see.” We might miss out, too, unless we are willing to “come and see” … because the only available transportation is still that leap of faith. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Category Sermons |
Published: January 22nd, 2012
Join us this week for worship at 10:30.
Scripture: 1 Samuel 3:1-20; John 1:43-51
Sermon: Who’s Calling, Please?, Rev. Donna Pritchard preaching
Focus: Recognizing God’s call to us even from unlikely sources
This Week’s Music
- Prelude: Rejoice Greatly, O My Soul, S. Karg-Elert; Jonas Nordwall, organist
- Introit: Praise to the Lord the Almighty, Paul Sjolund;
- Anthem: Here I Am Lord, Arr. Ovid Young; The Chancel Choir, Erick Lichte, conductor
- Offertory: Somebody’s Knocking At Your Door, Arr. William A. Fisher; Mark Woodward, soloist
- Postlude: Allegro, Gustav Merkel;
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Category Sunday Morning |
